[IP] FYI #26: Rice Q&A
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Date: Tue, 01 Mar 2005 10:14:01 -0500
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Subject: FYI #26: Rice Q&A
FYI
The American Institute of Physics Bulletin of Science Policy News
Number 26: March 1, 2005
Secretary of State Rice on Scientific Openness, ITER
Five days after her appointment as Secretary of State, Condoleezza
Rice held her first Town Hall meeting with State Department
employees. Two of the questions posed to her at this January 31
meeting addressed issues of science and technology. One dealt with
openness and scientific exchange; the second with the stalemate
regarding the siting of ITER. (Of the six countries participating
in this project, three countries support each proposed host site:
the EU, China and Russia support a site in France, while the US,
Japan and the Republic of Korea support a site in Japan.)
The text of the questions and Secretary Rice's responses are
provided below:
QUESTION: "I'd like to know what you think about Science, as a
diplomatic tool."
SECRETARY RICE: "I think science, as a diplomatic tool, is great. I
come from Stanford University [Rice was the Provost of Stanford
University for six years in the 1990s, as well as a professor of
political science]. And just let me say that, first of all, I'm a
huge proponent of exchanges, student exchanges, cultural exchanges,
university exchanges. We talk a lot about public diplomacy. It's
extremely important that we get our message out, but it's also the
case that we should not have a monologue with other people. It has
to be a conversation. And you can't do that without exchanges and
openness. And so I'm very, very devoted to that, and it gets to the
question of science.
"At a place like Stanford, the wonderful think is you look around
and you cannot find a more multiethnic, multicultural, multinational
endeavor than in the sciences, and the United States has always been
in the lead of being at the center of international science. And
science and knowledge know no boundaries. They can't know
boundaries. What's discovered in Russia, or what's discovered in
the United States or what's discovered in India or in Israel, it all
forms the base of scientific knowledge.
"The other thing is that the United States can lead in problems
where science and technology can be the solution. We have been very
involved in issues concerning greenhouse gases and climate change,
or instance. This is an important issue. And the United States is
spending $5 billion a year on these questions. Eventually, energy
and the economy and science and technology have to come together to
give us better solutions to these problems.
"So yes, we can press on a number of fronts on science: Openness in
recognizing that there are no boundaries and therefore keeping
ourselves open to other people, making sure that we are at the
center of the scientific discourse when it comes to particular
issues that science can help, and I think just being representatives
of the importance of the international character of science."
QUESTION: "I just wanted to mention to you, both a diplomacy problem
and a nonproliferation problem and an energy problem, which is all
wrapped up together. We've been working on this for the last 18
years while I've been here. And it's called the International
Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor, ITER.... The President himself
has taken the decision for the United States to reenter ITER. For a
while it had to leave because of budget problems. But recently, the
United States within the last year or two has gone back into ITER,
but we've run into a great roadblock because there are two countries
that want to have ITER, France and...the Japanese.... And
unfortunately, they're knocking heads against each other. The
United States has been quite open about saying, well, either country
would be okay, though we, at the moment have a preference for
putting it in [Japan]. But unfortunately, because there's six
countries involved and it's gotten quite political and difficult,
the whole thing is in great danger of going nowhere.
"...[T]his would be a major, major accomplishment if we could do
it. But we don't want to lose the opportunity.... And the United
States would only pay 10 percent of the cost of the project, which
is $5 billion, by the way, over ten years. That's very cheap - just
10 percent of that. The other countries are paying much more. But
we're in danger of losing all of that...."
[NOTE: While ITER is estimated to cost somewhere around $5 billion,
depending on the conversion rates used and other factors, DOE has
estimated that the U.S. portion might be approximately $1 billion,
spread over 8 to 10 years.]
SECRETARY RICE: "...[Y]ou'll be very pleased to know that I do know
personally about it and, in fact, have done some work on it. And
the ITER project is a very important project and we hope it can move
forward. We have backed the Japanese site at this point. But we
have said to the EU that if they can work something out with the
Japanese, then we will do whatever needs to be done here.
"But the scientists, actually, under the direction of Jack
Marburger, the Science Advisor to the President, selected the
Japanese site as the scientifically best site, and we'll continue to
work the problem. I agree with you. It's an important project and
we need to try to break through what is currently this logjam, three
and three [participating countries supporting each site]. And I
want you to know I do know about it."
###############
Audrey T. Leath
Media and Government Relations Division
The American Institute of Physics
fyi@xxxxxxx www.aip.org/gov
(301) 209-3094
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