Interview With Rolando Oscar Haza of WJAN-CA's "A Mano Limpa"

SECRETARY RICE: Well, I've never heard such outrageous language from any leader in the international community. And you know, it's a pretty high standard to say that. But for him to say that shows that this is someone who really the international community has to stand against.

Now, to be fair, his rhetoric has done nothing but hurt Iran. His rhetoric is part of the reason that no one trusts the Iranians concerning their civil nuclear program, which they say is a civil nuclear program but everyone believes is a program that is trying to lead toward the technologies for a nuclear weapon. It is clear that the international community is starting to stand against Iran. We've had two now Chapter 7 -- the most serious kind of resolution that you can have -- two Chapter 7 resolutions against Iran in a matter of months in the Security Council. And the isolation of Iran is deepening.

So I would hope that more reasonable leaders in Iran would look at the position that Iran is getting itself into and make better choices about how to deal with the international community.

QUESTION: What about Iraq? It was a mistake, the invasion to Iraq?

SECRETARY RICE: Oh, overthrowing Saddam Hussein -- a tyrant who had put 300,000 of his people, at least 300,000 of his people, in mass graves, a tyrant who had started a war that dragged us into a war when he invaded and occupied Kuwait, a man who used chemical weapons against his own people, against his neighbors -- of course it was right to overthrow Saddam Hussein.

Now the Iraqi people are in a struggle. They're in a struggle to have their new democracy established and there are violent extremists who are trying to stop them. But this President, the President of the United States, is committed to democracy for all people. It should never be the case that the United States of America is afraid to stand against tyranny.

QUESTION: We have one minute, two questions about -- talking about language, about the language of President Chavez in Venezuela, and if I don't get an answer about Cuba I can't get back to Miami alive. (Laughter.)

SECRETARY RICE: Of course, of course.

QUESTION: Okay. What's your opinion about Hugo Chavez?

SECRETARY RICE: President Bush just made a very excellent trip to Latin America in which he had a positive agenda about social justice, about the need for healthcare for people. We showed what America is doing for economic development, for trade and with democracies -- places where the leaders are committed to democracy. That's our agenda; not to worry about the Venezuelan President, but to have a positive agenda.

And that positive agenda includes to stand up for a democratic Cuba. The people of Cuba need to know that the rest of the world, but particularly the United States and the region, want them to have the same freedoms, the same ability to speak for themselves and to be respected in what President Bush has called the non-negotiable demands of human dignity. The Cuban people need to know that we stand for that. And this President has been one of the strongest believers that there should be no corner of the earth in which tyranny continues to reign. Cuba is in transition and the one thing that the Cuban people can be certain of is that in that transition and after that transition America will stand for a democratic Cuba, not for the transfer of power to yet another authoritarian figure.

QUESTION: Could you see Fidel Castro returning to power?

SECRETARY RICE: The transition is underway, one way or another, in Cuba. And what America must do is stand for the principle that the Cuban people deserve their freedom.

QUESTION: Thank you very much, Dr. Rice.

SECRETARY RICE: Thank you. A pleasure.

2007/T4-7