By Rudi Williams<br />American Forces Press Service<br /><br />WASHINGTON, March 14, 2004 – It isn't clear who was behind the brutal attack in Spain<br />that killed 200 and wounded more than 1,400 people, but National Security Advisor<br />Condoleezza Rice said today that in the global war on terrorism, this is just more<br />evidence of the lengths to which terrorists will go to try to intimidate free people.<br /><br />In an appearance today on NBC's "Meet the Press" with commentator Tim Russert, Rice said<br />Spanish authorities still suspect the Basque terrorist group ETA in the bombings, but<br />acknowledge it might have been foreign terrorists such as al Qaeda.<br /><br />"We have offered to do everything that we can to help the Spanish authorities determine<br />who was behind this attack," Rice noted. "But I'd just like to say one thing to the<br />Spanish people: terrorism is terrorism in the view of the United States and this<br />president. And we stand with them at this terrible time when once again we have seen<br />what brutal killers will do in the name of a cause. They will take innocent lives. They<br />will do so without any warning, and they will do so in places as varied as Indonesia and<br />Saudi Arabia, Morocco and Spain and the United States. It simply doesn't matter to them.<br /><br />"They will try and attack those who they believe might defeat them," she noted. "That is<br />a part of their game. But they will not win, and we will not falter."<br /><br />Rice said the world can't afford to be intimidated by terrorists and sit back and let<br />them grow and continue. "If we don't bother them, they won't bother us -- that's simply<br />a notion that cannot be tolerated after 9/11," she said.<br /><br />Terrorists began to think they were on the road to victory because of inadequate<br />responses to a progression of terrorist activities that got stronger since the early<br />1980s, Rice said. "And now they recognize that they have a United States of America and<br />a coalition that is taking them on," she noted. "They've committed acts of war against<br />us. We have no choice but to take them on wherever they may be."<br /><br />Russert quoted Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld as saying that more terrorists seem<br />to be created faster than they're being arrested or killed. Rice said the United States<br />and its allies have to deal with several layers of terrorists, starting with<br />organizations like al Qaeda. "We've rounded up two thirds of (al Qaeda's) known<br />leadership -- people like Khalid Sheik Mohammed and Abu Zubeida, who used to be their<br />field generals, are now in custody," Rice noted. "Others of them have been killed. We<br />are hurting that organization."<br /><br />But Rice said to be successful, it's also necessary to break up terrorists' financing<br />and their support networks.<br /><br />Rice said the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks were meant to decapitate the United<br />States by attacking the Pentagon and going after the Capitol and the White House.<br />"That's an act of war!" she said emphatically. The United States, she said, has to go<br />after terrorists in their strongholds because, as an open society, the nation can't<br />defeat terrorism by sitting at home trying to defend.<br /><br />"We are succeeding, because slowly but surely their world is getting smaller -- not<br />larger," she said. "They don't have Afghanistan as a base of operations. They will not<br />have Iraq as a base of operations. They will not have Pakistan and Saudi Arabia,<br />countries that now have joined in an aggressive way in the fight against terrorism. They<br />will not have Libya. They will not have Sudan. It's only through a policy that is<br />aggressive and tough that we are ultimately going to defeat them," Rice said.<br /><br />In the final analysis, Rice said, the United States has to work with those who want to<br />change attitudes in the Middle East. "It's obviously a place where hatred and ideologies<br />of hatred are flourishing because of lack of opportunity and the freedom deficit," she<br />said.<br /><br />Though al Qaeda's capabilities have been damaged, Rice said, the organization still can<br />launch spectacular attacks like the one in Madrid. "They are going to win skirmishes in<br />the war on terrorism," she said. "They are going to, from time to time, pull off an<br />attack. We know that. We know that even though we are safer -- much safer -- in the<br />United States, we are not yet safe.<br /><br />"But they are not going to win the war, and they are losing many of their most important<br />assets," she continued. "Not only (have they lost) parts of their leadership, but their<br />world is getting smaller."<br /><br />She said places where terrorists can operate with impunity are shrinking, because the<br />United States and its global coalition fight them daily through law enforcement and<br />through intelligence.<br /><br />"We also fight them on the ground for territory, where we can take regimes that were<br />once supporters of terrorism, regimes that were once problems for weapons of mass<br />destruction, and make those places that are on the road to democratic development," Rice<br />said. "The terrorists are losing."<br /><br />Everyone looks forward to the day that al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden is captured or<br />killed, but the war on terrorism isn't just about one man, Rice noted. For example, she<br />said there are others, like Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who is operating in and around Iraq.<br /><br />"There is an awful lot floating around about Osama bin Laden and where he might be<br />caught, or where he might not be caught, that isn't backed up by sound intelligence,"<br />Rice said. "People should stop speculating. We're on the hunt for him. We're working<br />with our allies in Afghanistan, and with Pakistan in Pakistan, to try to find him and to<br />try to find his associates. That is a daily, hourly activity and task.<br /><br />"We will find him when we find him," she noted. "And the best news is that he is on the<br />run because we have real allies now in the war on terrorism that we did not have prior<br />to Sept. 11."<br /><br />Biography:<br />National Security Advisor<br />Condaleezza Rice [http://www.whitehouse.gov/nsc/ricebio.html]