One on one with Condoleeza Rice

November 16, 2011 7:07 PM

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (NEWSCHANNEL 3) – On Wednesday, Newschannel 3's David Bailey sat down for a one-on-one interview with former Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice.

It was an intriguing interview with a leader who is still a controversial figure. Rice was in Grand Rapids to speak at a Republican Party event, talking about much more than just her new book.

For years, many have been highly critical of Rice's role in the war in Iraq. On Wednesday some protesters in Grand Rapids were saying she unlawfully fabricated justifications for going to war.

“How do you respond to a critic like that?” asked Newschannel 3's David Bailey.

“Well, first of all they have the right to protest, but they don't have a right to their own facts,” said Rice, “and they might want to go back and look at the record about the intelligence the Bush Administration was looking at concerning weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. They might want to look back at Saddam Hussein's history of causing wars in the Middle East, including wars in which we were dragged, putting 400,000 of his own people in mass graves, trying to assassinate George H.W. Bush, firing at our aircraft in the no-fly zones as we tried to enforce in 1991, and ask whether a Middle East with Saddam Hussein in the middle of it would be a Middle East that's trying to free itself of tyranny and authoritarianism today.”

“Saddam Hussein, Osama Bin Laden, they're all gone, is the threat still there for this country?” asked David Bailey.

“Well, there are still treats from the region, from the Middle East,” said Rice. “First of all Al Qaida, the organization that did 9-11 has clearly been dismantled, but not Al Qaida in total. It is still capable of small attacks, it might get fortunate one of these days and succeed, so we have to be vigilant about that.”

Rice says Iran is the country of most concern right now. The former Secretary of State is now a professor at Stanford University and dismisses any talk of running for president in 2016, saying she just loves being a teacher.