Questions Taken at Princeton University's Celebration of the 75th Anniversary Of the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs

QUESTION: I'd like to thank you for coming, first off. I've just been curious -- seems to me that there's been some sort of disconnect with a lot of the rhetoric that you've been presenting here today and with a lot of our actions in the Middle East. One example is that it seems that we've started to take a lot of a softer line with Hamas in Palestine, which is an organization that I think really doesn't fare with the ideals that you've been promoting here. I was wondering if you could try and explain that disconnect we've been seeing.

SECRETARY RICE: Thank you. It's a very good question. We've been very clear that Hamas is a terrorist group and it has to be disbanded, both for peace and security and in the Middle East and for the proper functioning of the Palestinian Authority. After all, it is a roadmap obligation of the Palestinian Authority to disband militias and armed resistance groups. There are periods of time of transition in which one has to give some space to the participants, in this case the Palestinians, to begin to come to a new national compact. But I cannot imagine, in the final analysis, a new national compact that leaves an armed resistance group within the political space. You cannot simultaneously keep an option on politics and an option on violence. There simply isn't a case that I can think of internationally where that's been permitted to happen.

For instance, in the Good Friday Agreement it was understood that when Sinn Fein came into politics and eventually the IRA would disarm and perhaps, hopefully, that process is now underway. We did not permit the Afghan warlords to keep their weapons and participate as candidates in politics. They had to make a choice. And so it is absolutely the case that you cannot have armed groups ultimately participating in politics with no expectation that they're going to disarm. But we are very clearheaded about Hamas.

Hamas stands for one-state solution, not a two-state solution. Hamas, therefore, stands for the destruction of Israel. Hamas is an organization that asks Palestinian mothers and fathers to give their children up to make themselves suicide bombers. And it is a real detriment and block to further peace in the Middle East, so we're not at all confused by this. We do, I think, need to give the Palestinians some space to try and reconcile their national politics, but they're going to eventually have to disarm these groups. They can't have it both ways.

QUESTION: Secretary Rice, again, I thank you for being here with all the students at Princeton. My question is about America -- I'm actually from Nicaragua. During the first term of President Bush, it was with Roger Noriega as sub-Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs. It was readily apparent that the main interest the United States in Latin America was Cuba. Will this continue during the second term? What is the policy of the United States toward Latin America? And I would like you to comment on the next presidential elections coming up in the next two years. Thank you.

SECRETARY RICE: All right. The United States, obviously, has an interest in a free Cuba because as the President said, "Tyranny shouldn't exist anyplace." And it is a sad fact that at the Organization of American States the only country that cannot take up a seat there is Cuba because you have to be a democracy to be part of the Organization of American States, but it is not the sum total of our policy in Latin America.

Our policy in Latin America is to encourage growth so that economic development can take place, good governance and democratic governance, and that means that those who are democratically elected need to continue to govern democratically. And free trade, which makes it possible to have an engine for that economic growth.

Now, what I think we've recognized in the last couple of years is that there were a piece of this that we didn't talk enough about and that is the issue of making economic development and growth relevant to the lives of people, particularly the most marginalized populations, whether they be indigenous peoples in places like Guatemala or Peru or Brazil or whether they are simply people who are so poor that they are marginalized without health care and without access to education.

And in our latest discussions with our Latin American colleagues we have had what we call the Monterrey Consensus, but we have moved on to add to that that there really has to be a concerted effort to make sure that any benefits of economic growth, because you're getting economic growth in Latin America, but that they somehow become tangible benefits for the people.

I believe that this helps to protect us -- and this gets to your next question -- and I won't comment on any specific election, but clearly what is happening is that you have a lot of responsible governments that are right of center and some that are left of center. Our view is right of center, left of center, not our issue; democratically elected, we can work with them. The problem is that you are getting some, in the Latin American term, "populist governments," that are appealing to the social justice message and that ground cannot be ceded to people who are not going to be responsible in their economic policies.

And so we've had actually very good discussions, for instance, with President Lula in Brazil, with the Chileans and with the Colombians and others. We believe that the IntraAmerican Development Bank and the World Bank can perhaps do more on these issues and that has been our approach to Latin America is to try and help stabilize democratic governance through economic growth but also dealing with the real problems of people.

And in your own country, Nicaragua, of course, we are very concerned about -- let me say, anti-democratic, if legal means, that are being used to undermine the power of the presidency, which was voted by the Nicaraguan people and there have been a number of envoys there from the OAS and some other places. And of course the Nicaraguan Government made an appeal for the -- for Mr. Insulza, the Secretary General of the Organization of American States, to go there about six weeks ago. He did. We are following that situation very closely.

DEAN SLAUGHTER: Right there in the front row.

QUESTION: Secretary Rice, what is your reaction to the reception that Karen Hughes received in Saudi Arabia last week?

SECRETARY RICE: Right. Well, I think Karen, who went on what she called a "listening tour," did exactly what we wanted to have happen. People obviously felt that they could open up and say exactly what they thought was right and exactly what they thought was wrong. Now, I said in my confirmation hearings, this has to be a dialogue, a conversation not a monologue. And some people think of public diplomacy as you talk at them about your message and they listen.

We think of public diplomacy as we talk with each other about the trends and developments that are going on in the Middle East. And I haven't had a chance obviously to talk with Karen; she's not back yet. But I think she found a wide variety of opinions on some things that we probably thought the range of opinions was narrower. And that will help us to inform our policies and it will help us to inform our outreach to people and our messages.

So I thought the reaction was just fine. It is really refreshing to me to see, first of all, women in the Middle East speaking up with that kind of fervor and that kind of activity and expressing themselves and saying all kinds of things from a wide variety of perspectives. And secondly, for that kind of freedom of expression to begin taking place in the Middle East. I think that's really kind of the headline underneath this.

DEAN SLAUGHTER: Last question. I'm going to ask our own Fred Hitts(ph).

QUESTION: Thank you Madame Secretary for coming. It was an excellent talk. Do you foresee the possibility of a federal outcome in Iraq? And if there is one, will the United States accept it?

SECRETARY RICE: I suspect that there will be an outcome that is federal in some aspect. That means that there will be some distribution of power between the center and the regions. It's a very complicated place. It is really hard to imagine it being run just from Baghdad and yet dealing with a varied and multifaceted interests of the people. The constitution that they have drafted acknowledges a federal system, but I think they're still going to have quite a debate about exactly what that means. And we have to say that however they choose to define that, I think, we will understand that that is an Iraqi choice.

Now, the one obligation that I think all of Iraq's neighbors believe that all of us have is that it needs to remain a unified Iraq, a united Iraq, that it cannot become several Iraqs. It has to be a united Iraq. But of course, with any united Iraq, you could have different distribution of powers and different distribution of responsibilities between the center and the regions and I think you will see that.

One of the smartest things that they did was that rather than try to write all of the rules about how different aggregations would be -- of units would become federal structures like the one that the Kurds have, they didn't write that into the constitution. They've left the writing of those rules to the next assembly. The next assembly should be more representative, including greater Sunni representation. By the way, the Sunnis are registering in droves to be a part of this political process. And if you had a more representative assembly, then I think those rules will probably get written in a way that addresses the interests of various competing interests, some who want a more federalized state, others who want a more centralized state. They're going to have to come to conclusions. But obviously, the most important thing is that it has to be a unified Iraq. That means that there are certain functions, obviously, that they're going to have to be reserved to the state. But how they come to terms with the relative relationship between the power of center and the regions, I think we're going to have to stand back and have them go at it.

Now, I might just note, as a closing note, we sometimes think of these issues as fixed in time. They write a draft constitution, they write rules for it and it never changes. If we know anything about our own political system, it is that the understandings and the way that these systems and these institutions work tend to evolve over time. And they tend to evolve at times when there is greater trust and understanding between parties that might not have been there when the original document was written. I remind people after all that, you know, our constitution wasn't so perfect -- the one that was written in Philadelphia -- because we had to make that nasty compromise about three-fifths of a man in order to hold the country together.

Now, fortunately, nobody's made a compromise quite that bad, as somebody who's a descendent of those people. But it does show that even if you have compromises from time to time, over time things evolve. And so while I think that the Iraqis will come to some conclusions in the immediate next few years about what the structure might look like, I suspect that over time it will evolve. It'll become a living document. It'll become a living process and living institutions. And in the political process, as it moves forward, some of this will smooth out over with the benefit of time.

Thank you.

(Applause.)

DEAN SLAUGHTER: In closing, let me tell you one more thing about Secretary Rice. I am facing an audience of Princeton students and alumni and I know, as a Princetonian myself, that some enormous percentage of you started your application to Princeton talking about your aspirations to be a Renaissance man or woman. Princeton has always favored the well-rounded student.

Secretary Rice is not only the leader you have just seen with a breathtaking knowledge of the entire world, she is a concert pianist and a near-champion figure skater. We would welcome her back to Princeton anytime. She's like Woodrow Wilson in one other way, she did not simply profess, she is in the government practicing what she once preached. But again, should she decide to return to the academic profession, we would welcome her at the Woodrow Wilson School.

(Applause.)

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