Rice gives no ground on Iraq

WASHINGTON – Senators from both parties pressed Secretary of State-designate Condoleezza Rice on Tuesday to provide a clearer U.S. exit strategy from Iraq, and one Democrat accused her of deliberately misleading the American public in the run-up to the war.

Rice is expected to be easily confirmed this week, but the uneven reception she received from the Senate Foreign Relations Committee illustrated the deep domestic divisions over U.S. foreign policy that she will inherit.

Rice declined to put a timetable on the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq and gave no ground in defending President Bush’s March 2003 invasion or the number of troops used for postwar stabilization.

She said the U.S. exit depends on training qualified Iraqi police and military personnel to take over security responsibilities, an effort that has been plagued with desertions, infiltration by insurgents and other problems.

Rice also said she will press other nations to increase their involvement in Iraq after Jan. 30 elections for a transitional Iraqi government. She is expected to travel to Europe soon after taking office.

The most dramatic moment came when Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., accused Rice of knowingly making misleading statements about Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction and ties to terrorism to sell the U.S. invasion.

“I personally believe … that your loyalty to the mission you were given, to sell this war, overwhelmed your respect for the truth. And I don’t say it lightly,” said Boxer, recalling Rice’s September 2002 statement raising the specter of “a mushroom cloud” from Saddam Hussein’s alleged nuclear-weapons program.

Rice, Bush’s national security adviser for the past four years, sat almost frozen during Boxer’s attack and then responded forcefully.

“Senator, I have to say that I have never, ever lost respect for the truth in the service of anything. It is not my nature. It is not my character. And I would hope that we can have this conversation and discuss what happened before … and what I said without impugning my credibility or my integrity,” she said.

As secretary of state, Rice told the committee, she will champion American diplomacy to revitalize U.S. alliances and will make promotion of democracy in the Middle East and elsewhere her overriding objective.

“The time for diplomacy is now,” she said.

Rice also promised intense personal involvement in the wake of this month’s Palestinian presidential election to try to mediate a lasting peace between Israel and the Palestinians, a goal that has eluded her predecessors at the State Department.

“I expect myself to spend an enormous amount of effort on this activity,” she told Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb.

She pledged that the Bush administration will help strengthen and streamline Palestinian security services, but added: “We’re not going to get very far if there is terrorism from the Palestinian militants.”

Rice indicated she is open to the idea of appointing a special envoy for the Middle East, but has not made a final decision.

Rice also promised “a broad public diplomacy effort” to reshape the increasingly negative image of the United States around the world.