Condoleezza Rice warns of danger from 'failed states'

By M. Scott Carter The Daily Record Newswire OKLAHOMA CITY, OK -- Speaking at a press conference prior to her appearance at the Cox Business Services Convention Center, Condoleezza Rice said the United States' greatest threat comes from failed states. "One of the most surprising things to me when I entered government was the degree to which the threat to the United States didn't come from powerful states, it came from failed states," Rice said. "And the quintessential failed state was Afghanistan." Rice, who served as both national security adviser and secretary of state for then-president George W. Bush, described Afghanistan as a complicated, tribal place. "It's very hard," she said. 'It's always going to be hard, but we can't afford to lose patience with Afghanistan. It isn't what it was before 9/11, but it is still, potentially, the greatest safe haven for terrorists." However, Afghanistan isn't her only concern. Rice said the Mexican-American border has become similar to a failed state. "The border with Mexico has the characteristics of a failed state," she said. "Mexico has experienced 5,000 assassinations and kidnappings of officials." And while Rice praised the administration of Mexican President Felipe Calderon, she said portions of the country that border the United States have become very dangerous. "The Calderon government is a good government," she said. "But Juarez and Tijuana, which used to be cities that Americans went to across the border easily, are now places that you wouldn't want to go to." To fix the problem, Rice said those failed areas must be healed. "Our primary concern has to be to get Afghanistan and Pakistan right," she said. "The No. 1 security threat on the foreign policy side is the existence of these failed states. They have to be healed. It's hard work and it's dangerous work and it takes a lot of resources and patience." Additionally, Rice said the U.S. can never rest in its efforts to stop terrorism. "One of the challenges is that we have to be right 100 percent of the time," she said. "And they only have to be right once." And while Rice said the al-Qaida network and Osama bin Laden remain a concern, she said the organization had taken a beating and was not the threat it was previously. "Al-Qaida has been hurt," she said. "They have been robbed of their field generals. By breaking up that structure, I think we have really weakened them. "It's not the organization that it was on Sept. 10 and that's very good news. And when I hear Osama bin Laden commenting on climate change, I think something is strange." Rice, the 66th U.S. secretary of state, spoke as part of Oklahoma State University's Executive Management Briefings series. The program is sponsored by OSU's Spears School of Business. Rice currently is a professor of political science at Stanford University and the Thomas and Barbara Stephenson Senior Fellow on Public Policy at the Hoover Institution. Published: Mon, Feb 22, 2010

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