FOX News being typically uncooperative, does not seem to have this
video posted which may be moot since when they are posted, if memory
serves me well, I find it impossible to embed them. So here's a pretty
picture instead.
Interview With Wendell Goler of FOX News
Interview
Hillary Rodham Clinton
Secretary of State
Istanbul Congress Center
Istanbul, Turkey
April 1, 2012
QUESTION: Thank you for talking with us, Madam Secretary.
SECRETARY CLINTON: Always a pleasure.
QUESTION:
The U.S. is apparently going beyond providing just humanitarian aid,
strictly humanitarian aid, for the Syrian opposition forces. Tell me
what we’re providing and why.
SECRETARY CLINTON:
Well, we are going to be providing what you might call technical or
logistical equipment – not arms, not military equipment, but
communications equipment. We’ve learned that there’s a great deal of
difficulty for the opposition to communicate with one another inside
Syria, and from inside to outside to their counterparts who are along
the border of Turkey or elsewhere. That will facilitate the safety as
well as the movements of the people who are on the inside.
We have
some intelligence capacity that we might be able to usefully offer. Now
other countries are going to choose to provide different kinds of aid.
Today, a group of countries announced that they were going to be funding
some of the Free Syrian Army. That’s their choice, but what we think is
appropriate for us is to try to facilitate the ability to communicate
and to be protected and to know what is happening inside Syria to
minimize civilian casualties.
QUESTION: On
providing money to basically try and encourage members of the Syrian
army to defect, that seems very close to arming the opposition,
something the United States didn’t want to do for fear of raising the
number of civilian casualties.
SECRETARY CLINTON: Right.
QUESTION: Why is it better to encourage defection? It seems like it’s another increase in violence.
SECRETARY CLINTON:
Well, I think what you’ll find is that many thousands – the numbers
vary, some it’s from, like, 10,000 to 40,000 of the soldiers have
defected. If you really study the Syrian military movements, they have
five brigades. They use two of them because they can’t trust the other
three of them. And there have been a number of defections at senior
officer levels, generals and colonels, many of whom are now across the
border in Turkey kind of setting up headquarters.
So clearly,
there needs to be a greater reassurance to those soldiers who defect
that if they take their weapons and turn them against the military that
continues to ruthlessly assault civilian targets, they’re going to –
their family is going to be provided for, there is some safety net for
them. I think that’s a sensible approach for those countries that are
willing to do that.
QUESTION: Syria’s government
says with recent gains by the Syrian army that the battle to overthrow
Bashar al-Assad is done and that now it’s a battle to regain stability.
Tell me why you think they’re wrong.
SECRETARY CLINTON:
Well, I think they’re wrong because what they have done is to create
enemies of the regime. Where before, they had peaceful protestors and
demonstrators who, inspired by the Arab Spring, wanted the chance to
choose their own leaders and participate in their society. The
resistance that has been put up by poorly armed fighters who often ran
out of ammunition, who had nothing but a AK-47 or some other automatic
weapon against tanks and mortars, demonstrates that this is a very
long-term conflict.
And I also think that from within, the effect
of the sanctions – the travel bans, the other kind of pressure that
we’re putting on members of the regime, the accountability project that
the United States has begun to catalog the atrocities so that people on
the inside can look around and think, “Man, I better get out of here
before I end up at the International Criminal Court,” because remember,
it sometimes takes years. It takes years. But we do end up with a lot of
the criminals who committed crimes against humanity or even war crimes
eventually having to face justice.
So our reading is that this is
not the end of anything. It may not even be the beginning of the end.
It’s just the very start of a long-term process that will lead
eventually to the removal of Assad.
QUESTION: Thank you, Madam Prime Minister.
SECRETARY CLINTON: (Laughter.)
QUESTION:
Let me ask you a couple questions about another subject. On Iran, the
President says all options are on the table to keep Iran from developing
a nuclear weapon. Do you feel like it’s your job to make sure it
doesn’t come to having to use military action?
SECRETARY CLINTON:
Well, I’m a diplomat. My job is to try to see if there are peaceful
ways to resolve difficult problems, and this is a really difficult
problem. When the President says all options are on the table, he means
it. When he says that our policy is prevention, not containment, he
means it. But there are a number of different paths that can get us to
the outcome we’re seeking, which is a peaceful resolution of this very
difficult challenge. And we appreciate the fact that Iran will return to
negotiations with what’s called the P5+1, the five permanent members of
the Security Council, plus the European Union and Germany. And we will
enter into those negotiations with the hope that there can be a positive
resolution, but without any illusions and without any patience for talk
without progress.
So there has to be a plan going forward, and we
think that we could arrive at an acceptable resolution that would give
the Iranians the right to peaceful nuclear power under verifiable
certain conditions, but remove the threat that they are developing
nuclear weapons. But we’ll see. The proof is in the pudding, as they
say, and we’ll start cooking that pudding in a few weeks.
QUESTION:
The U.S. and Israel clearly disagree how much time is left before
military force would be necessary to keep the Iranians from developing a
bomb, but they also disagree on what the effects of using military
force would be.
SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, I don’t
want to get into the kind of very analytical expert discussions that
we’ve been having at the highest levels with the Israelis. I will say
this – that I think there is agreement about the status of the Iranian
program. I think that, as Prime Minister Netanyahu has said on numerous
occasions, Israel reserves the right to defend itself. So they have a
view that they have to have great certainty as soon as possible that
they will not be threatened. Our position is that we have increased
sanctions and pressure on the regime. We’ve kept together the
international community. It’s quite remarkable that people are reducing
their crude oil imports and going to great lengths to try to comply with
American and European sanctions because they want to be part of the
solution, not part of the problem.
So we think that the array of evidence points to the importance of pursuing the diplomatic path at this time.
QUESTION:
Did you force Iran’s hand yesterday when you announced that the talks
would be held in a couple – few weeks in Istanbul? It’s my understanding
they hadn’t actually committed to the talks yet, at least publicly.
SECRETARY CLINTON:
Well, we’ve gotten lots of private messages from a number of different
sources that they were going to go to the talks, and I think we need to
start planning for them. I certainly hope that they will follow through
on what they’ve told a number of people about their intentions to be
serious participants.
QUESTION: I think that’s a yes. Thank you, Madam Secretary.
SECRETARY CLINTON: (Laughter.) Thanks. Good to see you.
QUESTION: And you.
