Hearing of the House Committee on International Relations: International Relations Budget for Fiscal Year 2006

HEADLINE: HEARING OF THE HOUSE COMMITTEE ON INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

SUBJECT: INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS BUDGET FOR FISCAL YEAR 2006

CHAIR: REPRESENTATIVE HENRY HYDE (R-IL)

WITNESS: SECRETARY OF STATE CONDOLEEZZA RICE

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Mr. ACKERMAN. Madam Secretary, congratulations on your new position.

First, I congratulate you and the Administration for stepping up to the plate and expressing a willingness to be supportive of the Palestinian Authority in their expressed quest to reform the behavior that they have exhibited in the past. I think carrots are a very decent approach, and when they demonstrate success, I believe they should be rewarded even more.

A suggestion: I think we look at what is successful on TV. I would suggest, because you need to show to the Palestinian people a change on the ground, as they say, to go into two, three, four different villages, in consultation with them and the Israelis—who should also step up to the plate—go into those small villages or towns and do an extreme makeover. Go in, take the whole pot of money, divide it into four different places, rebuild houses and schools and water supply, a factory, employment, roads, et cetera, to demonstrate there is a reward for good behavior and to indicate to others that maybe their village could be next.

I am very interested in the Administration's overall policy direction, and I was left a bit confused after the original Bush doctrine that I believe said we will not tolerate rogue nations going into nuclear programs. After Iraq, we are now faced with real nuclear programs in both North Korea and Iran. Does the Bush doctrine still apply? North Korea has found a loophole and said, ''We are not developing a program, we have one.''

Secondly, I listened very intently to the President's inaugural address in which he talked very much about freedom, a very noble notion of which we all approve, and a policy reinforced by your eloquent remarks as you began your statement.

I am not sure what it means when the President says to the nations or the peoples of the world that if you stand up for freedom, we will stand with you. What does that mean? The President's assertion, we are going to spread freedom all over the world, and I like the notion of seeing George Bush as a Johnny Freedom Seed or something and going around trying to convert all of these dictatorships, or what have you. How do you do it? Wishing or hoping doesn't make it so, and we can't have a faith-based foreign policy. There has to be an actual plan.

Standing up; if you stand up for yourself, we are going to stand up for you. What does that mean? If they saddle up, we will saddle up with them? Does it mean we are going to stand by and just applaud? Does it mean we are going to send them a Hallmark card wishing them well? What does ''stand up with you'' actually mean?

In specific cases, if the people of Taiwan declare that they want freedom, do we send the 7th Fleet into the Strait of Taiwan? And what if there are revolutions in China for more freedom and human rights; do we take up arms against China? Saudi Arabia; sometimes the devil that you know is better than the devil that you don't know. And I think we know the devil that we don't know.

The President singled out Egypt, and what do we do about that if political reforms are a lot slower and people demonstrate that they want to stand up for more political rights? Do we help them overthrow the Government of Egypt? This is all very confusing. Maybe you can straighten us out.

Secretary RICE. Thank you very much. Let me take the nuclear question first.

North Korea, actually since the mid-1990s, we believe that the assessment has been that they probably were capable or maybe even had developed a nuclear weapon, so it is not new in that sense. We have been trying to deal with that North Korean problem ever since. We tried through the agreed framework. The North Koreans violated it. The South and North signed an agreement in 1992 that they would both forgo nuclear weapons, there should be no nuclear weapons on the Korean peninsula, and they violated that. So we are trying a different way, which is to do it through six parties, so they are not facing just us but also China, Russia, Japan, and South Korea. A different path is open to them, and it is our hope that they will take it.

But there are different ways to deal with the weapons of mass destruction threat and problem in different states. Not all of them can look exactly alike. Iraq was a unique situation, given Saddam Hussein's long history of use of weapons of mass destruction and his defiance of the international community. So we are going about these in different ways and looking for international support and multilateral support to help solve the problems.

When it comes to the President's remarks about standing with people who wish freedom, I think there are several basic points. First of all, if one believes really that these values are universal, then you don't believe that democracy has to be imposed. I have heard people say, ''You are going to impose democracy.'' Tyranny has to be imposed, not democracy.

Mr. ACKERMAN. But how do you depose tyrants?

Secretary RICE. Do you want to be able to speak freely and be free from not just the secret police? People will say yes. I understand this is the work of generations, and we are not going to go around the world deposing tyrants all over the world, but there are a lot of things working in our favor. If you look at how, for instance, we ultimately defeated tyranny in the Soviet Union, a State that was, after all, armed with 5 million men under arms and 30,000 nuclear weapons, we did advise continuing to broadcast the truth through Voice of America and Radio Free Europe, by supporting civil society through the Helsinki Process so that human rights advocates got a chance to come out and deal with human rights advocates from around the world. We have a similar way of dealing with educational and cultural exchanges to give people a place to adhere, and we have stayed strong with those fighting for those values. And despite the power of the Soviet Union, tyranny came down.

Looking at the last several months, who could have predicted in Georgia the Rose Revolution would have happened? Or in the Ukraine, the Orange Revolution? Or that Afghans and Iraqis would have voted in the numbers that they did? Or that the Palestinians would have voted for a man who talks about ending the armed Intifada?

I know sometimes when you look out and say, ''What is the way that one brings an end to tyranny and brings about freedom?'' that it is easy to look at many very difficult cases, but I can't think of more difficult cases than some of the ones that we have already seen.

You are seeing, even in the Middle East, the stirrings of freedom in places like Jordan and Bahrain and Morocco. We are going to help that process through the broader Middle East Initiative which again allows civil society groups and women's groups and business groups to come out and to have discussion, and help from similar groups from G-8 countries and from other international countries.

We have many arrows in our quiver that help in the spread of democracy and liberty, because, since these are universal values, we are not pushing on a closed door, we are pushing on an open door. It is going to take a generation or more, perhaps, just as it did in defeating tyranny in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, but if the President of the United States does not speak out for this, if the President of the United States does not put this on the agenda, then nobody else will; and the people in places that are still suffering in tyranny will think that they are friendless.

The most important thing that the President of the United States can do, as Presidents have done for the last 50 years of the Cold War and must continue to do, is to let these people know that they are not friendless, that the United States of America stands with them.

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