QUESTION: Madame Secretary, this is Adam Schrager in Denver. How are you today?
SECRETARY RICE: I'm just fine, thank you. How's Denver?
QUESTION: Denver is wonderful. Another sunny day. Thank you so much for being with us.
SECRETARY RICE: Pleasure to be with you.
QUESTION: I wanted to start off, ma'am, by asking you -- the media is often criticized for reporting only the bad news of what's going on right now in Iraq. If you had an opportunity to share with our viewers what's the most important untold story of what's going on in Iraq.
SECRETARY RICE: Well, I think the most untold story is the story of local leaders beginning to take back their streets from the terrorists, from al-Qaeda; local leaders emerging to begin to provide goods and services for their people at the local level; of course, wanting their national government to pass important legislation and to make available resources. But when we were just -- I was just with the President in Al-Anbar Province, a province that a year ago was said to be lost to al-Qaeda. We met local leaders who were determined to provide for their own people and to take back their streets from violent terrorists. And that's the story that I think needs to be told about Iraq.
QUESTION: What do you tell people who may say, well, another tribal leader was actually killed in Anbar Province and it's just one province in a very big country?
SECRETARY RICE: Well, it's a critical province in a very big country, and it is the province in which the epicenter of al-Qaeda's activities over the last years and the epicenter of the insurgency that was killing so many American soldiers. But of course, the death of -- the assassination of Sheikh Sattar is a very sad event. But I've been reading the comments of these -- of his colleagues, of other sheikhs, of other local people, who say that this is not going to deter them; in fact, it is going to -- his memory is going to remind them of the brutality and the barbarity of the people against whom they're fighting. He is a fallen hero in this great province, but the Iraqi people are not going to be intimidated. They're going to continue to fight back.
QUESTION: Madame Secretary, I received an e-mail from a woman named Brenda whose daughter is serving right now in Iraq. And she -- her question is when is her daughter going to be able to come home.
SECRETARY RICE: Well, the first thing I would say to her is thank you for her service, because she is in a noble cause to try and help a young democratic ally who will then help to make us safer as the Middle East emerges as more stable and more secure.
But the President has heard from General Petraeus that if we continue to make the kinds of gains that we are making, certainly American forces will begin to come home in December, more will likely come home in the spring. And even though we can't say and don't want to set -- shouldn't set a timetable, it's obvious that as the security situation improves, as Iraqis have a security situation that they can handle, and as local people step up as they're doing in places like Anbar and Diyala, the day when American forces are going to come home is getting closer. And even though we will long be allies of Iraq and have a strategic relationship with Iraq, it's very clear that American forces are not going to be needed to do the kinds of things that they're doing today.
QUESTION: You just alluded to some of the issues that our next viewer, Corey France (ph) who wrote in a question asking what gets the troops home safely and yet leaves a stable, viable government in Iraq.
SECRETARY RICE: Well, we can certainly leave a stable and viable government in Iraq if we are willing to continue the policy that we are engaged in since January, which is one of having helped the Iraqis begin to provide security for their populations so that they can have the room and space to overcome their differences. We know how hard it is for people to overcome differences from our own history. My ancestors, at the time of our Constitution, were three-fifths of a man. I come from Birmingham, Alabama, where we had great violence in the Civil Rights Movement just 40 years ago. So we know how hard it is to overcome differences even in a stable democracy like our own.
So when we work with the Iraqis, with these local leaders to train Iraqi security forces, to help bring in goods and services to the Iraqi people, we are building and helping them to build a foundation for a stable and secure Iraq. And when our forces come home, as they will begin to do this year, we will have left an Iraq that can be an ally in the war on terror, that can be a bulwark against Iranian influence -- a very dangerous state in the Middle East, and that can help to make a Middle East that is going to be more secure for us and for our children.
QUESTION: After the testimony of General Petraeus on Capitol Hill and Ambassador Crocker, we received comments from all of Colorado's congressional delegation. I wanted to read you Senator Allard, a Republican, complimented the military success but said he was concerned about the slow progress. Representative Musgrave, a Republican, said she was discouraged about the slow process.
This country, it seems, is in a bit of a state of unrest. And I guess, what do you tell people to assure them that this mission is going to be successful?
SECRETARY RICE: Well, we're clearly having an effect on security on the ground. Violence is down. And even though al-Qaeda can get off a spectacular attack of the kind that they did against Sheikh Sattar in Anbar Province, it is clear that we are helping the Iraqis to defeat the terrorists.
Now, the political progress, of course, is slower because the politics is hard. You're asking people to overcome differences through politics rather than through violence and through the kind of tyranny that Saddam Hussein practiced. And by the way, Saddam Hussein practiced a tyranny that really ripped apart the fabric of this society. So, of course, the politics is hard.
But I would remind everyone that while they are having trouble passing national legislation, even if they've not passed an oil law, they are distributing revenues to the provinces so that when we were in al-Anbar Province we saw the local leaders talking about the money that they're receiving from the central government to be able to provide for their people. While they don't have a de-Baathification law, they are indeed reconciling thousands of people -- former army officers, former other officials -- back into life in Iraq. While they don't have a provincial powers law, which is one of the benchmarks that we had, they are -- in fact, the provinces are taking their role and taking their power.
So it is not the case that there is no political progress in Iraq. There is political progress in Iraq. The national leadership needs to do more. We are pressing them to do more. But we should not miss the forest for the trees here; and what is going on in provinces like Anbar and Diyala and neighborhoods in Baghdad is a form of political accommodation and reconciliation that is extremely important to the future of Iraq.
QUESTION: Madame Secretary, I have time for one more question. I wanted to ask you, Senator Ken Salazar, a Democrat here in Colorado, has been pushing for the implementation of the Iraq Study Group recommendations into law, specifically increasing diplomacy in the region and changing the mission from one of security to training. Your thoughts on that?
SECRETARY RICE: Well, I think there's no doubt that the time is coming when the American mission, the American military mission, will change. We're going to be in a transition to a mission that is more dedicated to training Iraqis, a mission that is there to protect the territorial integrity of Iraq against states like Iran, a mission that will be principally one to fight the terrorists. But we can't skip over the phase that we're in now, where we're helping the Iraqis to provide security for their populations so that they have room and time to overcome their differences.
As to the diplomacy, we're very actively engaged in much of the diplomacy that was suggested by this very fine group of Americans led by Jim Baker and Lee Hamilton. I, myself, am going to attend a regional conference of Iraq's neighbors. We've had one. We will have another. Iran and Syria will probably both be there, as they were at the conference a few months ago. The UN is stepping up its role in Iraq. Just the other day, the Saudis announced that they're putting a diplomatic mission in Iraq.
And we are also pursuing other diplomatic goals in the Middle East. I'll very soon be on my way to Israel and to the Palestinian territories to help the Palestinians and Israelis make progress toward a Palestinian state.
So we're very actively engaged in the diplomacy. We could not agree more that Iraq is a part of a broader Middle East strategy.
QUESTION: Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, thank you so much for being with us.
SECRETARY RICE: Thank you.
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