Pre-emptive strike plan and pre 9-11 intelligence

MARGARET WARNER: Let's turn now to the new national security doctrine that you all rolled out last Friday and I understand you had a great role in drafting.

And, as you know, there's been a lot of criticism particularly about the doctrine of pre-emption which you laid out in writing, and let me just - I'm going to read you just one - this comes from the French president, and he actually spoke even before you rolled this out - the piece of paper - but he's called the whole doctrine extraordinarily dangerous - "As soon as one nation claims the right to take preventive action, other countries will naturally do the same."

What do you say to that?

CONDOLEEZZA RICE: Well, I would say that the idea of preventive action is not a new concept. In fact, the idea that you have to wait to be attacked to deal with a threat seems to us simply to fly in the face of common sense.

The United States has always reserved the right to try and diminish or to try to eliminate a threat before it is attacked. It simply wouldn't make sense to sit and wait to be attacked if you thought that you could eliminate a threat.

Let me give you an example from the 1960's. In 1962, we had the Cuban Missile Crisis. And the United States engaged in what is an act of war, that is, a quarantine of Cuba, a blockade of Cuba, because there were missiles that were about to become operational against the United States.

The Kennedy Administration didn't wait until there was an attack from Cuban soil against the United States. It simply doesn't make sense to say that you have to wait.

Now, to be sure, anticipatory self defense, or preemption has to be used carefully. One would want to have very good intelligence. You probably would have wanted to try a lot of other means before you move to eliminate the threat in this way --

MARGARET WARNER: Because some would argue certainly that in the Cuban Missile Crisis the president did not go attack Cuba - he blockaded Cuba.

CONDOLEEZZA RICE: Well a quarantine and a blockade is an act of war - and I'm quite certain that had someone run that blockade the United States would have been faced with another preventive decision - so the fact is that you don't want to wait until a threat fully materializes if you can avoid having that happen.

There are lots of ways to deal with threats; diplomacy is one way; counter proliferation -- that is taking active measures against an emerging threat.

But there may be in a small number of cases circumstances where you can only use military force. And in those cases the American president has to reserve the right to do it -- and in this day and time when we know the cost, after September 11, of being attacked without warning and a case in which we were not able to react to the threat before they got us it would simply not be appropriate or the president would not be fulfilling his obligations if he is prepared to let threats materialize or until they have actually - until there's actually been an attack against American territory.

MARGARET WARNER: Another part of the strategy document I wanted to ask you about was the one that asserts the goal of maintaining - of the U.S. maintaining military superiority globally, indefinitely - is the aim to dominate the world militarily for the indefinite future?

I mean, the language that says essentially - our forces will be strong enough to dissuade potential adversaries from pursuing a military buildup in hopes of surpassing or even equaling the power of the United States.

CONDOLEEZZA RICE: Well ask yourself if you'd rather have the converse- which is that an adversary actually catches up and overtakes the United States - the United States is a very special country in that when we maintain this position of military strength that we have now, we do so in support of a balance of power that favors freedom and indeed we don't want to do it alone; we welcome and hope that there will be military contributions from other like-minded states to maintain that balance of power that favors freedom.

Secretary Rumsfeld was just at NATO suggesting that the NATO allies increase their military capability, transform it to deal with today's threats, so that those of us who love freedom, the freedom loving democracies of NATO, can together provide a balance of power that favors freedom, provide a shield against threats.

But if it comes to allowing another adversary to reach military parity with the United States in the way that the Soviet Union did, no, the United States does not intend to allow that to happen, because when that happens, there will not be a balance of power that favors freedom; there will be a balance of power that keeps part of the world in tyranny the way that the Soviet Union did.

MARGARET WARNER: Let me close by asking you a couple of questions about the joint inquiry into the pre-9/11 intelligence failures because you just referred to the attack without warning.

You had said back in May, "I don't think anybody could have predicted that these people would take an airplane and slam it into the World Trade Center, that they would try to use an airplane as a missile."

Now, as you know, the joint inquiry found otherwise; they found there was a lot of historical evidence that, one, terrorists planned and were capable of attacks in the U.S. - and two, that they talked a lot about using airplanes as weapons. Given everything that has come out, do you still believe that the attacks were unpredictable?

CONDOLEEZZA RICE: Yes, I do still believe that the attacks were unpredictable. Look, the 1998 reports that apparently some intelligence analysts looked at and made an analysis that perhaps al-Qaida wanted to slam planes into buildings were simply not made available to the Bush Administration.

We weren't here in 1998, and I think you have to look at the fact that this was among a host of other intelligence analyses that suggested that car bombs and attacks against nuclear plants, and other means of terrorism were more likely.

But the fact is when I spoke in May about what was presented to the president on August 6, it is absolutely the case that what was presented to the president and what was analyzed for him and what was analyzed throughout the administration was traditional methods of hijacking - in fact that the hijacking might be to try and win release of al-Qaida prisoners or something like that.

There wasn't any mention or analysis of people slamming planes into buildings; it simply wasn't there.

MARGARET WARNER: I guess the question these hearings brought up is whether there should have been more information available to you - that there was a whole problem of coordination, there were all these disparate pieces of information out there -- that the U.S. Government was not structured in a way to really respond, that the FBI agents in the field didn't know George Tenet of the CIA declared war on al-Qaida.

I mean, you know the litany and I just wonder if you as the National Security Adviser, who's responsible for making sure that all these agencies ultimately coordinate for American security - that in retrospect you feel that perhaps you just didn't -you all didn't and the Clinton Administration before you - appreciate really the urgency of the threat and the need to change things to deal with it.

CONDOLEEZZA RICE: I think people appreciated the urgency and the threat, and I think both we and the Clinton Administration were trying to deal seriously and aggressively with al-Qaida - but we have learned since September 11, that there was inadequate intelligence sharing for a host of traditional and cultural and in fact reasons going to the very nature of who we are about what the FBI and the CIA could share.

And we know that now. It's why Director Mueller - Director Tenet - the president in the creation of a Homeland Security Department - are moving t o fix the stovepiping that obviously did exist. Everybody knows now that there was inadequate intelligence sharing prior to 9/11.

We've learned a lot of lessons from that. And organizational changes are being made to deal with that. A Homeland Security Department would, for instance, be a place that all of the vulnerabilities of the United States could be analyzed, that the intelligence that's coming in could be matched and mapped on to those vulnerabilities and that responses could be programmed and taken; that simply didn't exist in 1998, didn't exist prior to September 11.

We really do believe that the key here is to try and take what we've learned and to move forward and to make those organizational changes, and they are being made.

MARGARET WARNER: Condoleezza Rice, thanks so much.

CONDOLEEZZA RICE: Thank you very much.