*EPF203 09/09/2003
Rice: Rebuilding Iraq Will Be Costly, But Freedom Is Priceless
(National security advisor briefs at Foreign Press Center Sept. 9) (1100)

By Jane Morse
Washington File Staff Writer

Washington -- The $87 billion the Bush administration wants to spend on stabilizing and rebuilding Iraq will be well worth the price, says National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice.

"We need to remember what is at stake here," she told members of the Washington foreign press corps September 9. "Yes, the price tag may be very high," she acknowledged. However, "freedom is priceless" and "security is priceless," she said.

Speaking at the State Department's Foreign Press Center, Rice said that "a stable and prosperous Iraq is going to be the centerpiece of a more stable Middle East, along with, hopefully, a Palestinian state that can live alongside Israel." Reaching that goal, she said, will create "a different kind of Middle East. And there are a lot of people in the Middle East who want a different kind of Middle East than exists now."

In the near term, the Bush administration is planning to contribute $20 billion to meet the most urgent tasks of restoring electricity, water, and health services in Iraq, she said. The remainder of the country's needs, she said, should be met through some combination of Iraqi resources and contributions from individual donors and international financial institutions.

The new U.S.-proposed U.N. Security Council resolution on Iraq "speaks to this," she said. "It's going to be extremely important. There will be a donor conference on the 23rd, 24th of October."

There are almost 30 countries now working with the United States in Iraq, she said. "But we believe that a new United Nations resolution could provide an opportunity for more countries to be involved, for the international financial institutions to be involved.

"Let's remind ourselves that the goal here is to get a working infrastructure in place in Iraq so that economic activity can return to the country," Rice said. The goal is to avoid having Iraq become "a kind of ward of the international system that just needs money year after year after year after year," she said. "Iraq will eventually be able, we believe, to return to economic sufficiency because they have resources, they have educated people, they have the means by which to do it. But the infrastructure needs to be rebuilt. Investments need to be made."

Despite the enormity of the task, overthrowing the regime of Saddam Hussein was "the right decision," Rice said.

"America is resolute. Our friends and allies are resolute. We will prevail," she said.

"If there was something that was really underestimated, it was how really awful Saddam Hussein was to his own people," Rice said. "The Iraqi people, the international community, the region will not have to fear a bloody tyrant who has attacked Arab nations in the neighborhood, who pursued and used weapons of mass destruction. The world is safer for the demise of Saddam Hussein."

The effort to rebuild Iraq "should be shared, because we will all benefit," Rice said, adding that the world should remember "that the United States and the coalition partners undertook this because we believed it was in the best interest" of global security. "That was the right decision, and we've been on a strategy to bring that to fruition ever since."

The national security advisor emphasized that the United States, along with international partners, is "accelerating the process by which the Iraqi people will assume their own sovereignty and responsibility for their own future."

She noted that "a Governing Council has been named, and a preparatory committee has been formed to devise a way to write a constitution, and there are also 25 cabinet ministers now" who are "running every Iraqi ministry."

"There is a political horizon that is being developed by the Iraqi people themselves," Rice said, one that could be shared with the United Nations. In addition, there are already some 60,000 Iraqis who are involved in the security of their own country, Rice said, and "that number will increase."

Regarding the "roadmap" for resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Rice said it "will remain on the table as a reliable guide to the president's June 24th vision of two states living peacefully side by side."

"There really isn't any other option but the creation of a peaceful Palestinian state and a peaceful Israel living side by side," she said. "That is what is going to be best for Israel, that is what is going to be best for the Palestinian people, and so we have to keep that vision in mind."

She acknowledged the current "unsettled period" in Palestinian politics. But the Palestinians, as they decide how to configure themselves politically, must realize the necessity of creating institutions that work, Rice said. "This should not be about a single personality." What is needed is "a prime minister who will be empowered to do the things that must be done on behalf of the Palestinian people," she said.

The national security advisor also called for unifying Palestinian security services. "You can't have nine different security services, none of them reporting to the minister of interior; it just can't work," she said.

She also urged Palestinians to dismantle terrorist infrastructure and to continue the efforts to establish transparency in finances.

Rice said the Israelis also have responsibilities. Among those she listed were improving living conditions for the Palestinian people by lifting closures wherever possible and dismantling outposts. Israelis, she said, "need very much to look at the root of this fence that is being built. ... [I]t shouldn't be an intrusion on the lands, the agricultural lands or the university lands, of the Palestinian people."

Rice said the United States has been "very actively engaged" in trying to bring peace to the Middle East. "The most valuable asset is that you have a president of the United States who is prepared to work for a Palestinian state, and to work for it on the fastest possible timetable.

"The United States will be there for any party, and for the parties, if they are also prepared to fulfill their obligations," she said. "And that's what we're saying to potential [Palestinian] prime minister Abu Ala, and we are saying it to the Israelis as well. ...

"There's only one future; that is together, in the absence of terror. And we're working very hard with the parties to get there," Rice said.

(The Washington File is a product of the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)

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