 Hi, I'm Cam Hess with United Press International, and there's been a recurring theme today which is the Bush policy in the Balkans. I'm wondering if you could straighten us out on that. During the campaign, many of us were under the impression that what he was talking about was a withdrawal of troops orderly over a certain amount of time, but definitely a withdrawal of troops. And now in the transition, the public statement is, well, we're going to review all of the deployments and just see. So was it ever the intention of the Bush administration to withdraw troops, and has that changed? Or was it never the intention, and we misunderstood? Could you put that up? Well, let me tell you what then Governor Bush said and what remains his policy, which is that he believes that it is important to review American deployments in various parts of the world. But that any review of any deployment would take place in the context of alliance confrontation, that any review would take place, taking account of commitments that we have already made, and fulfilling those commitments in coordination with our allies. And that has not changed, and that continues to be the policy today. Mohamed Sutwahi, Egyptian TV9 News Channel. I have a question about the Middle East. Are you going to build on President Clinton's last proposals on the Middle East or just start from the beginning? And concerning Iraq, I have a question about your policy, your vision about this question in Iraq. Are you going to try to replace President Saddam the way maybe Mr. Powell handed in his speech accepting domination or sanctions? Are you going to continue them forever if President Saddam continues to survive yet another administration? On the Middle East, let me be very clear. There's one president of the United States until January 20th. And I think that President-elect Bush believes that until he is actually president of the United States, he's not going to start making foreign policy. President Clinton is involved in Middle East policy, and it is our view that until President-elect Bush is president of the United States, the Middle East, we're not going to make any statements about what we will do. On Iraq, I think it's been very clear, and I believe you would see in the testimony that Secretary Powell gave, that our belief is that Saddam Hussein remains a tremendous threat to the region, that there has to be pressure brought on him, continuous pressure brought on him to live up to the obligations that he undertook at the end of the Gulf War, that the sanctions regime needs to be reinforced and strengthened, and that it will be the goal of this administration to make certain that we deal with Saddam Hussein in a way that is consistent with the tremendous threat that he remains to his neighbors, including the potential that he is continuing to try to develop weapons of mass destruction. I think that that's probably what it's obliged to say at this point, and at some point in time it will be clear what else may be in store. Mike, do you think it's human rights laws? Yes, over here? Yes. Yeah. It's not far from the Washington Times. There's been some concern about the possible arms sales to the decision on arms sales to Taiwan. I just wanted to be able to forward that. And just as a second question, I've heard that the non-political staffers at the National Security Council have been told that they're going to have to leave. I wonder what the reason for that is. I'm sorry. I don't know what you're referring to in the second case. The NSC staff, as it always is, is a mixture of people who will stay to fulfill details and a mixture of people who will be brought in from the outside, and nothing has changed as far as I know through practice of NSC staff for sometime in the past. In terms of the arms sales to Taiwan, that is not yet an issue. It will come up on the Hill and we'll cross that bridge when we get to it. The one thing that we'll say is that President-elect Bush, as he makes clear when he was running for office, believes that he has certain obligations under the Taiwan Relations Act and that he is going to fulfill those obligations. Mike Kondrisa came in right to watch. He questions on trade policy, one general, the other specific. Late last week I was in the Silicon Valley at a conference on trade policy in the 21st century in which there were discussions about the role of international labor standards and environmental standards in trade regimes. I'd just be interested in your general comment on that issue. And then a specific question about China's entry into the WTO. As China joins the WTO, what do you think can be done to encourage greater adherence to international labor standards as well as to create social safety nets for millions of unemployed workers who are going to lose their jobs? Thank you. Well, China's entry into the WTO, I think our belief is, will be good for China and good for world trade. Good for China not only because it will open, because principally it will open the economy. And in opening the economy will ultimately also probably help to open the politics. Now out of all of that I think that you get a system that will likely be more responsive to labor issues and more responsive to its citizens. It is increasingly the case with China that fewer Chinese citizens are fewer and fewer Chinese citizens are beholden to the Chinese government for their likelihood. And that is a very good development and I would expect that to continue. Around the world the importance of increased attention to environmental standards, to environmental degradation, I think it's something that everybody takes seriously. It's a question of how to get it done. Certainly working conditions are something that everyone wants to see improved. It is probably the case that prosperous countries do better on both scores and so part of the goal is to improve the prosperity of countries around the world where these have been problems. And also I would say to enhance democracy around the world because when you have democratic government you have greater attention and greater scrutiny on issues like labor standards and environmental policy. I would just cite that back in the 70s there was always this thought that somehow collective societies might better protect the environment than capitalist societies. And when the Soviet Union broke up we realized that the important variable was democratic societies which have an open press, which have the possibility for organization around interest groups around environmental standards tend to protect the environment better. Dr. Rice, Scott Thompson from the Butcher School and the Board of Directors of Peace Institute. I am just off a plane from Manila where the greatest challenge to democracy and coherence is being fought out in the streets as we speak. You spoke of values like democracy and you spoke of allies. I was told by a close confidant of this person called President Estrada that he will use the inaugural activities here on Saturday as a smoke screen to end the turbulence by declaring martial law and closing down the parliament. I'm wondering if you have contingent plans for dealing with what might well be your first small crisis. Well, thanks Scott for the warning. Look, I don't think I can speculate on what may or may not happen in the Philippines. Obviously a very important place, but I think it's probably better not to speculate. Dr. Rice, can you please clarify the mystery of the publication of The New York Times two days ago? There was an article claiming that President George W. Bush going to change American politics over Russia, conduct a very hotline poll. And then there was the text of the interview. And they didn't find in the text of the interview anything which was supporting this claim. So who should I trust? Text of the interview of The New York Times. Sergei, that's a loaded question, isn't it? Let me just say that headline writers, with all due respect to headline writers, don't always reflect the substance of what is in an article. I think that President-elect has made it very clear that he expects to have a fruitful professional relationship with Russia, that it is a country with which we have many interests in common, many concerns, and areas of conflict. And that we'll just have to work through it in a business-like fashion. It is, by the way, in everybody's interests to see a democratic prosperous, hopefully market-oriented Russia emerge. And everyone should hope for that day. But I don't think that words like a harder line or more confrontational approach toward Russia would characterize his thinking. So I should subscribe to the Washington Post. Trudy Rubin, the Philadelphia Inquirer. At an earlier session, we were discussing what you might have meant by the words, the US doesn't want to be the world's 911. And I wonder if you could yourself elaborate a little bit whether this means you rule out peacekeeping operations. Do you think there should be a different kind of body that does them? What do you think about the idea of Kovjana's idea about UN peacekeeping being bolstered, whether you think regional organizations could work? Who will do it if we don't do it? And will we ever do it? I don't think you rule out a priori of anything. The President of the United States ought to have, as his disposal, instruments that can be tailored and fit to the circumstances that he faces at any particular point in time. This simply came in the context of the question of making certain that we're not trying to do everything, that we're not trying to be every place at every point in time, that perhaps we do develop with others ways of managing crises of this kind, including with regional powers. We've all spoken, I think, positively about the East Timor model where Australia was able to carry most of the load with some American help of the model in which perhaps it's emerging with Nigeria and Sierra Leone. But I think the important point is that the United States really can't afford to go it alone here. There are places where we have strong alliances, like in NATO, where we have an infrastructure for doing things that we don't have in other parts of the world. And as we become more concerned about other parts of the world, I think we have to give and defocus the people on just the Soviet threat, which gave us the infrastructure in Europe. I think that we have to begin to think about what kind of infrastructure, what kind of coalition, what kind of relationships we need to develop in other parts of the world.