Remarks By National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice To African Growth And Opportunity Act Forum

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WASHINGTON, Nov. 5 /U.S. Newswire/ -- The following is a transcript of remarks by National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice to African Growth and Opportunity Act forum:
The State Department

DR. RICE: Thank you very much. In fact, I have to tell you that not only was I Jendayi's professor, I was Jendayi's professor when she was a suspicious sophomore at Stanford University, wondering why I was talking about all of this foreign policy stuff. And you see where she ended up. I'm just delighted that she is now Special Assistant to President Bush and Senior Director for African Affairs, and really the President's right hand person on African matters.

And I'm also delighted to be here with Walter, the Assistant Secretary for African Affairs. Walter, it's great to be with you. The two of them see a lot of each other, because as Jendayi said, we are trying very hard to have coordinated policy and we believe very strongly that policy toward Africa is key to the success of our broader foreign policy goals.

It's a great honor to have -- to have the chance to come and talk with you. I'd like you to know that I recognize that you've already heard from many in the administration, and so I'm going to try not to be redundant. I'm going to make a few remarks, and then perhaps we can have a bit of a dialogue, and I can take your questions.

You heard from the Chief yesterday; you heard from President Bush. I know that he talked to you about the opportunities and challenges that we face post-September 11th. I want to talk about some of those opportunities and challenges. Now, obviously, September 11th was a kind of earthquake in international politics. It was certainly an earthquake here in the United States. But I think that it has much broader implications for international politics.

Now, seeing our challenges through the prism of the war on terrorism, I want to make two points to you. The first is that our goals of building trade and fostering development in Africa are as important today as they were on September 10th. Secondly, these very important goals are now threatened by the specter of world terrorism. And so we have to do our part to stay focused on the broad agenda that we've been establishing together, and also to make certain that global terrorism does not undue the very positive agenda that we have before us.

I want to do several things. I'd like to talk about the nature of that threat, the nature of the response that we're making, and then specifically about Africa's important contributions to the overall global campaign.

The nature of the threat. As I said, September 11th marks a turning point in world history. Your children and your grandchildren are going to talk about that day, and what has transpired, and the global war on terrorism in which we are now engaged. I think it's one of those events that everybody always says, where were you when something happened? Well, we will all remember where we were when September 11th happened.

The killings and the menace may well get worse before it gets better. And I just want to caution that, because the terrorists are currently well organized, well financed, and most importantly, they respect no limits. We know that al Qaeda will kill Africans as well as Americans. The 1998 embassy bombings killed 18 Africans for every American. We know that they will kill Muslims as well as Christians and Jews. The 1998 bombings showed that. And when the World Trade Center was bombed on September 11th, more than 80 nations lost citizens.

And few doubt that if these terrorists possessed weapons of mass destruction, they would seek to use them. I want to be clear about who the enemy is and what they represent. As the President said of the September 11th attacks, they were an attack on humanity itself. The war that we're now in is a war seeking to destroy those who seek to destroy innocent lives, including the innocent lives of Muslims.

This is not a war on Islam. I cannot say that more often, or strongly enough. Islam is a religion that respects human life, that respects innocence. Islam is the fastest growing religion in America, and I can tell you that Muslims all over the world, in Africa and all over the world, were as horrified by those attacks on September 11th as were Christians and Jews.

Many Muslims serve in America's armed forces. And five times in the past decade the United States has engaged in operations to protect and help Muslims: Desert Storm in 1991; Provide Comfort in 1991; Somalia in 1992; Bosnia is 1995; and Kosovo in 1999.

The enemy is terrorist organizations of global reach, and al Qaeda is Exhibit A. These people are criminals, plain and simple. This is a war of right and wrong. Our war has nothing to do with the fact that they claim to speak for Islam. It does have to do with the fact that they have killed large numbers of Americans, they seek to kill many more, they have killed citizens of many countries, and they seek to undermine and destroy all that the world calls civilization and progress.

The immediate objective is to bring justice to those responsible for the 11th -- September 11th attacks. A broader objective is to eliminate terrorist organizations of global reach. This means holding accountable those countries that support, house, clothe and defend terrorists on their territory. It can no longer be the case that you harbor terrorism on your territory, and say that you are not responsible when a terrorist attack takes place.

Now the most visible part of our campaign is against the enemy in Afghanistan. And I want to give you a little bit of an update about what we are achieving there. We are going after the camps in which these terrorists are trained, and we're destroying them, so that they can't go back to them and continue to promote terrorism. We are steadily tightening the noose around the Taliban and al Qaeda's operations there.

I'm going to tell you, it's not easy work. Anybody who knows Afghanistan knows that this is not an easy place. We expected that; and we expect that the coalition knows that we are, as the President said, in a long struggle. But our war on terror is very broad, and it takes place on many fronts. The military piece is the one that everybody watches, because it's on television and, frankly, that's the way we think about war -- we think about marching armies going off to war.

This is a different kind of war. Yes, we are engaged in military action to try to root out al Qaeda, to try and root out the bases that they have in Afghanistan, to make sure that Afghanistan can not be used as a base for terror. But we are also fighting on other important fronts: diplomatic, financial, intelligence, legal and law enforcement.

The United States understands that different nations will contribute different things to this global coalition. Some can participate in military operations, but others can contribute on other fronts. It may be that the most important thing that we do is to get a single piece of information that unravels this organization. So we should not be focused only on the military campaign, we need to be focused broadly on all the instruments of power that the coalition, of which many of your countries are a part, is trying to bring to bear.

The critical point is that the support is real, and that the United States understands that the members of the coalition understand the struggle that we are in. States can't have it both ways -- can't pay lip service to being a part of the coalition, and then engage in actions that support terrorism. You can't say the right things diplomatically, while looking the other way to terrorist training grounds, or financial operations. When you sign on to the war on terrorism, you really have to mean it.

We understand, too, that this is going to be a long fight. And even if we realize that it's going to take a long time to coordinate all these various elements of the campaign, that is not an excuse for not getting started today. People say this is hard, it's going to take time. Well, our view is, then we needed to get started on September 12th, and we believe that we did.

Now, about the role of Africa in this coalition. The countries represented here in this room have an historic role to play in the global battle against terrorism. Indeed, Africa's history and geography give it a pivotal role in the war on terrorism. Africa has always been a meeting place, a bridge, for the world's major religions. That means that Africa is uniquely positioned to contribute, especially diplomatically -- through your nations' memberships in African and Arab and international organizations and forums -- to the sense that this is not a war of civilizations. This is a war in which all humanity and all of civilization is engaged.

Africa also is uniquely positioned to understand the consequences of failing to meet the challenge of global terrorism. There are international terrorist networks -- al Qaeda, Al-Ittahad, based in Somalia, Egyptian Islamic Jihad and others -- that have a presence that transit, that train, that recruit and fund raise across Africa.

And I want to say a word here even about local terrorist groups. Mr. bin Laden has said that he franchises. He provides training, he provides financing, he provides territory. And then people can go and conduct their own terrorism. So when we talk about a war against al Qaeda, against global terrorism, we are also talking about cutting off the means of support to organizations that may simply be taking advantage of the largess, and the support of these global terrorist organizations.

Africa is all too familiar with the horrors of terrorism, or any other murderous ideology that knows not reason nor mercy. President Bush understands Africa's important role in the global campaign. He has consulted with many of your heads of state in the weeks since September 11th, including from South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya, Ethiopia, Senegal, Tanzania. He is looking forward to additional meetings at the UNGA next week and, indeed, prior to the UNGA next week.

We are seeking to integrate Africa and each of the countries within it into our global campaign strategy to succeed. We're pleased with the level of support and cooperation that we are receiving from the Continent. Sub-Saharan Africa's 48 countries, without exception, have offered unwavering political support in the global fight against terrorism. Every day, more African leaders are pledging to comply with United Nations Security Council Resolution 1373, and to crackdown on terrorist financing. Some African countries have offered basing and overflight rights. And as President Bush mentioned yesterday, the U.S. supports the Dakar Declaration, calling on all African nations to ratify the 1999 Algiers Anti-Terrorism Convention. And I want to thank President Wade for his leadership in that regard.

As I mentioned a moment ago, the campaign against terrorism has to be fought on many fronts. The military response is only the most visible element of the campaign. We're already working with many of your governments on other fronts, a unified diplomatic stance against terror, intelligence sharing, the freezing of financial assets, and law enforcement cooperation to arrest known terrorists. We want to strengthen those links.

We must be united in our determination to prevent Africa from being used as hideouts for the killers. The United States understands that many African nations, while committed to putting terror tools in place, may lack the capacity to do so, whether it be software and networking for trafficking financial transactions, or airport security equipment. As the President said yesterday, we will look for ways to offer technical assistance, much as we did -- I think successfully -- after the embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania, in 1998.

One of the most important and tangible contributions that Africa can make right now is to make clear to the world that this war is one in which we are all united. We need African nations, particularly those with large Muslim populations, to speak out at every opportunity, to make clear again what I have said, that this is not a war of civilizations, this is a war of civilization against those who would be uncivilized in their approach toward us. Do not let the world forget that there were many African and many Muslim victims of al Qaeda, both in Kenya and Tanzania, and at the World Trade Center.

I want to close by saying the following. We clearly believe that the war on terrorism is the number one priority. You would expect no less of us since September 11th. But we are not going to be America the preoccupied. We do understand that we have other extremely important goals that we need to continue to pursue. Fighting terrorism is now the number one priority, but this does not mean that the administration's policy objectives in Africa are going to fall by the wayside.

We will not abandon our commitment to combatting HIV/AIDS, malaria, and TB. The first contributor to the Global Fund was the United States, and we are providing nearly $1 billion annually to international efforts to combat AIDS and infectious diseases, more than two times the amount of the second-largest donor.

We will not abandon our commitment to promoting prosperity, democracy, trade, human rights, and the rule of law. AGOA, a new trade round, capacity-building initiatives that the President announced yesterday, are critical and will continue to be funded. The U.S. is committed to standing as a friend to nations that are taking the hard steps toward democracy, open societies, free trade, rule of law, and transparency; to backing and standing beside those who are making the right choices.

We will not abandon our commitment to promoting peace and ending war. We are working with countries such as Nigeria and South Africa, and Mali and Tanzania, to mediate conflicts and to end wars in the Congo, Angola, Sudan, Sierra Leone and Burundi.

Indeed, we can make a case that these efforts are more important in the wake of September 11th, not less. Practically, we understand that the development of democracy and stability are the critical underpinnings and the foundation for a world that is eventually freed of terrorism.

We also understand that our goals for development and democracy and trade will be impossible to achieve if we cannot destroy those who would bring terrorism to bear, to destroy those goals. Morally, we understand that it is not enough to seek to rid the world of evil -- we must also do our part to fill the world with good.

The United States and Africa share a common history. Today, we face common challenges, from terrorism to trade. By working together to meet those challenges, we can forge a common future that benefits all of our people.

And now I look forward to taking your questions. Thank you very much. (Applause.)

MODERATOR: Any questions for Dr. Rice? The floor is open. Yes, sir.

END