Hewitt: Dr. Rice, let’s talk a little politics. Last time we actually spoke on this show was the Fall of 2000. You were advisor to then candidate Governor George Bush, now he’s the President and you’re helping him run the world. Will you be participating in the campaign or does the position of National Security Advisory preclude such participation?

Rice: Well by tradition the Secretary of State, Secretary of Defense, Secretary of the Treasury and I do not participate in campaigns. I think that’s a very good thing, because foreign policy of the United States is not a partisan matter. It is a matter of the security of our country, about the spread of freedom. It’s absolutely the case that we should have debates in the campaign about our foreign policy. The American people should be able to look at the record of this President and to see how its gone and to debate that, but I think it’s a good thing that the principle officers for foreign policy do not get involved in the campaign.

Hewitt: With that in mind as we approach the campaign season, will the participation in the rebuilding of Iraq necessarily be politicized by the swirling of politics here. We’re headed towards elections, the UN’s agreed with the position that the Administration has about the timing of those, but it is inevitable that politics will color how the occupation proceeds?

Rice: I certainly hope that politics will not color in any way what we’re doing in Iraq. It’s simply too important. This is a generational commitment to do something that will bring about a positive development in the Middle East which is a region that is desperately in need of positive development, and I hope that everybody will step back and recognize that this is a time when we need to send as a country strong messages to the Iraqis. For instance, that they are not going to be abandoned. That we are going to stay there until the job is done, that whatever happens the United States is committed to the course that it has begun. I think it is important that we have a debate about the role of the United States in the world that we not send mixed signals that terrorists might read as a weakening of our resolve to fight this war on terrorism. And it is war on terrorism. This is not a law enforcement action against a few criminals who happen to call themselves Al Qaeda. This is a disciplined army, a network that is determined to destroy the civilization that we all enjoy and all love, and so we need to be sure that we are not sending mixed signals.