Monday October 15 11:10 AM ET

Rice to Give Interview to Al Jazeera on Monday

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. national security adviser will give an interview on Monday to Arab satellite television channel al Jazeera, which has come under U.S. criticism for broadcasting statements by Osama Bin Laden.

White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said Condoleezza Rice, national security adviser to President Bush, would give the interview in the early afternoon Washington time and that the White House would later distribute a transcript.

``The president thinks it's very constructive for members of his administration to do interviews with al Jazeera and therefore be in communications with people who live in Arab nations predominately,'' Fleischer told reporters.

The White House is reviewing a request to interview Bush by al Jazeera, which has taken flak in the United States for its exclusive broadcast of statements by Bin Laden, the Saudi-born militant who is the chief suspect in the Sept. 11 attacks.

The television station, which earlier interviewed British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Secretary of State Colin Powell, is owned by the government of Qatar.

Saying that bin Laden's statements could contain coded messages to his followers to launch fresh attacks on U.S. targets, Rice last week asked the major U.S. television stations not to air his statements in their entirety.

The networks agreed to review the statements before airing them, rather than broadcasting the footage live as soon as it became available.

-- Anonymous, October 15, 2001