White House Press Corps.org: Press Briefing by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley 4/3/08 (NATO Summit Results)

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Press Briefing by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley 4/3/08 (NATO Summit Results)
— Thursday, April 03, 2008 —

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Q With these decisions today by NATO, do you think that President Bush and President Putin will be able to settle their differences this weekend on missile defenses, or do you think it could be more of a broad, strategic statement that they're going to come to?

SECRETARY RICE: Well, I certainly think that there will be a -- we expected that there would be a strategic framework about which we've talked. And a part of that has to be some discussion of missile defense. We are hopeful that Russia will take the opportunity to express the views that have actually been expressed to us about the usefulness and the importance of the measures that the United States has been willing to take, concerning the third site in the Czech Republic and Poland, that are meant to allay Russian concerns that somehow this missile defense system, the nine interceptors and radar sites, are somehow aimed at the Russian deterrent. And so that opportunity obviously arises, and already when we were in Moscow the Russians said that these were useful and important. We hope that we can move beyond that to an understanding that we will all have an interest in cooperation on missile defense, but we will see.

Yes.

Q As far as Afghanistan is concerned, are you -- you said you're satisfied with the result. But is this the end of your pressure of the other allies to provide more commitment, more troops, and I think about Italy, Germany and Spain, or you just satisfied with this result, and that's the end of it?

MR. HADLEY: Well, interesting your question is -- "the end of our pressure." I think one of the things that was interesting about that meeting today was the NATO allies are all putting pressure on themselves. And NATO ally after NATO ally said, we have got to succeed here; it is important for the credibility of the Alliance; more to the point, it's important for the security of our people, and we need to succeed and we need to do more.

This isn't just President Bush's line. This is now the line of everyone there. It's what we heard of President Karzai: a lot of progress was made; we all have to do more. Same thing from Secretary General Ban Ki-moon: progress -- need to do more. And as you know, the United Nations is stepping up.

So I think everyone recognizes we need to do more. And it's not like we're going to come to a level and that's it, success is around the corner. This is going to be a long commitment. This is a hard fight. We are going to have to assess our requirements, modify our forces, modify our tactics and strategy, and do it over the long term. So I think what you are seeing is a much more focused engagement in Afghanistan, and a commitment that we cannot fail, and therefore are going to have to, in a very focused way, do more, and work more effectively with the forces that we have, both military and civilian.

Labels: Afghanistan, Condeleezza Rice, NATO, President Bush, Press Briefing, Stephen Hadley, White House Press Corps

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