Hearing of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs - U.S. Policy in the Middle East

Interview

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REP. MICHAEL MCCAUL (R-TX): I thank the chairman.

Madame Secretary, welcome. It's good to see you again. I think you're doing a fantastic job. I fully support also your diplomatic surge, if you will. I think it's time we focus on that. I wish you all the success in the upcoming regional meeting in Istanbul. I hope it's a very substantive meeting. I know sometimes these meetings are somewhat lofty, and I hope you're able to get something done in the region.

I want to focus on an issue that we've talked a lot about, diplomacy. We've talked a lot about Iran. But I want to focus on something that hasn't been raised. Iran is working towards nuclear capability, but there is another Muslim state that already has it, that, in my view, poses a potential threat to our interests, and that is Pakistan.

Through the A.Q. Khan network, they achieved that capability. Pakistan, after all, has given us people like Ramzi Yousef, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. They continue to train and recruit terrorists, al Qaeda specifically, in their country. The Saudis continue to finance this operation.

Former Prime Minister Bhutto was almost assassinated, and many people were killed, as you know. President Musharraf is literally a bullet away from Pakistan being turned over to these extremist forces.

This is yet another challenge that I know you have on your plate, but it is a real concern of mine of that country being one bullet away, being turned over to the extremists, and then they have that capability in the region.

And I just wanted to -- in light of the recent killings in Pakistan, I just wanted just to get your comments on the situation there.

SEC. RICE: Well, Pakistan has its challenges. I think everybody can see that. This is a country that was really at the brink of extremism, had close relations with Taliban, and one of the few countries in the world actually to recognize the Taliban government in Afghanistan during that period of time. And we effectively had no relationship with Pakistan.

And I think one of the lessons is that we effectively didn't maintain our relationship with Pakistan after the Soviet Union left Afghanistan, and we paid for that. We paid for it in not having the contacts. We paid for it in the rise of extremism.

We have a good partner in President Musharraf. We are encouraging him to broaden his contacts with moderates, other moderates who can be a Pakistani bulwark against extremism, which is why we have been supportive of his efforts with Ms. Bhutto and hope that there will be an effort of all moderates to be prepared for fully democratic elections to take place in the Parliament in December so that Pakistan can take that next step toward a more stable democratic environment. It's obviously very difficult.

One of the problems that we have tried to help them with is on, for instance, education. We're supporting their own program to reform madrassas and to reform some of the very basics where this extremism is growing. We've tried to help with economic development.

We've tried to help with economic development in the federally administered tribal regions while saying to them that they have to fight up there against the extremists.

So it is a broad scale program to try to help Pakistan but I think we have to recognize that it was at a very, very dangerous point a few years ago. It's still really challenged but the point that I would take from the past is that when we did not maintain those ties -- when we cut off Pakistan -- we got a worse outcome and so our deep engagement with Pakistan at this time and with moderate forces there I think is well worth doing.

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