May 5th, 2011

AC360: Cooper speaks with former secretary of state Condoleezza Rice

Anderson Cooper anchors AC360° from NYC’s ground zero tonight. In a one on one interview with former secretary of state Condoleezza Rice, Cooper talks to Rice about the death of Osama bin Laden and the White House’s decision to not release the photos.

Below please find select interview bites. Full transcript available after the show.

AC: There’s also been a debate about the photos. Whether or not they should be released. The administration has made the decision not to release them. Do you think that’s the right call?

CR: I think the administration had to make this call based on all of the factors that they were juggling. But I think on balance, I would not have released the photos. First of all they can be pretty gruesome. And they would likely incite and so…

AC: You think they would incite people.

CR: I think so. There’s just something about those photos. I remember when the photos of Saddam Hussein were released a bit prematurely by the Iraqis and it probably wasn’t as well handled as it might have been. And so this is a delicate matter, we need to be able to move on now and I suspect they made the right call here.

 

AC: Just finally I was thinking about that photo now that has been seen around the world of President Obama, Secretary Clinton and others in the situation room watching, would you have liked to have been in that room?

CR: Well everyone would have loved to have been in that room, wouldn’t you have liked to have been in that room?

AC: Yes, absolutely

CR: [laughs] But the most important thing is that that picture said it was done, and for the American people this long journey which really has spanned two presidencies, where we have learned to fight this kind of fight in the extraordinary way that led to this victory, this chapter is closed and I’m grateful to the Obama administration to President Obama and his team for having handled this so well, I’m grateful for President Bush, to President Bush for having taken the really tough decisions that put the infrastructure in place to do this, and what it shows to people out there is that you might be able to harm the United States of America, you might be able to wound us even grievously as they did on September 11th, but you can’t defeat us, we’ll get you and that is an important deterrent going forward.

 

 

PLEASE CREDIT ALL USAGE TO CNN’s ANDERSON COOPER 360

Contact: Shimrit Sheetrit – shimrit.sheetrit@turner.com

 

Tune in to Anderson Cooper 360° tonight at 10pET on CNN