Washington -- National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice defended the
strongly worded warning about North Korea, Iran and Iraq made January 29 by
President Bush in his State of the Union address, saying these countries
pose a serious threat and "it's time to get serious about it."

Interviewed February 3 on the Fox News Sunday TV program, Rice said "you
don't get anywhere by pulling punches about the nature of regimes like the
Iraqi regime, or the North Korean regime. It's not as if anybody really
believes that these are good regimes that are just engaging in a little bad
policy.

"We've seen, in this war on terrorism," she said, "that speaking plainly is
the way to rally people, not the other way around."

Rice noted that the president said in his address that the United States
wants to work with its allies on this issue.  "I would say to everyone,
Let's step back here, and instead of worrying so much about what the
president said on Tuesday night, let's put equal energy into working to make
sure that these regimes don't get these weapons of mass destruction."

These countries, she said, "are a clear and present threat to us and to all
of the responsible and civilized world.  Because the Iranians, who spread
and support terror around the world, the North Koreans, who proliferate
these weapons, the Iraqis, who make a region of great importance to us
unstable, clearly are a clear and present threat to America, America's
interests and America's allies."

The focus on these three countries is not a change in U.S. policy --
"they've been on notice for some time," Rice said.  But Bush's words were "a
call to the international community, to our friends and our allies, to do
what all of us must do in terms of non-proliferation, in terms of cutting
off the vehicles for these regimes to get these weapons."

On the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Rice called on Palestinian Authority
Chairman Yasser Arafat to deal with Palestinian terrorists.  "He knows what
he needs to do," she said.  "He knows that there are Hamas and Hezbollah
elements around him. He knows that the Karine A affair, the shipment of arms
apparently purchased from Iran and shipped through Hezbollah, is a violation
of the Oslo Accords.

"We are asking nothing more of Chairman Arafat than we have asked of every
other leader in the world.  If he's going to be the leader of the
Palestinian people, and if he wants to achieve the vision that he's laying
out here, he knows how to do it. And it begins with dealing with the
terrorists in his midst."

Rice said "We've never said that there has to be a 100 percent result before
we get back to pursuing a peace arrangement" in the Middle East.  "But he
[Arafat] has not done enough. And it is very clear that he can do more to
disable the terrorist networks."

Sources

• Washington File