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Iraq, terrorism, to be top Rice questions
Condoleezza Rice's televised job interview to be the next secretary of state presents a rare opportunity for senators to ask President Bush's most trusted foreign policy confidante to explain her views and her role combatting terrorism and waging war in Iraq.
Tuesday's daylong question and answer session before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee is considered a formality — both Republican and Democratic senators say she will easily win enough votes for Senate confirmation.
"We are dealing with a person whose substantive personal views are unknown," Lieberthal said.
As the first secretary of state nominated after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Rice will talk both about securing embassies and U.S. diplomats overseas and about her own advice to Bush about terrorism in the early months of his presidency.
Rice also will use the hearing, which may extend to Wednesday, to outline her plans for a renewed Middle East peace initiative and other goals in Bush's second term.
"Dr. Rice is looking forward to discussing the foreign policy priorities of our nation and the men and women of the State Department family," deputy national security adviser Jim Wilkinson said.
Rice has a sparkling resume full of firsts — including being the first woman to serve as White House national security adviser.
The Senate session will be another first. Her previous Washington jobs, including a stint as a foreign policy adviser for Bush's father, President George H.W. Bush, did not require Senate confirmation and the intense scrutiny that goes with it.
Rice's best preparation for Senate questioning probably came last spring, when after long resistance from the White House she testified before the independent Sept. 11 commission. There were uncomfortable moments as Rice defended the administration's priorities and answered criticism leveled by a former deputy, Richard Clarke, that she underestimated the threat posed by Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida terror network.
"No silver bullet" could have prevented the attacks, Rice said then.
On Iraq, Rice repeatedly has defended the administration's reasons for war, including the premise that Saddam Hussein possessed dangerous weapons of mass destruction and would use them or pass them to terrorists if he was not stopped. No such weapons have been found since the United States led an invasion of Iraq nearly two years ago.
Republican senators planned to join Democrats in asking Rice about the weapons discrepancy and about the adequacy of U.S. planning for the war and its aftermath.
Naturally cool and meticulously well-prepared, Rice isn't likely to wilt.
If confirmed, Rice would be the first black woman, and only the second woman after Madeleine Albright, to be America's top diplomat. She would succeed Colin Powell, who often was out of step with Bush's inner circle.
Rice brings a colorful biography to the job. She is a classically trained pianist who has performed with Yo-Yo Ma. She is a skilled figure skater who shares Bush's passion for exercise, and follows professional sports in obsessive detail. Bush joked in nominating her that her dream job is really to be commissioner of the National Football League.
Rice, 50, is single.
She grew up in the segregated South, the granddaughter of a poor Alabama cotton farmer. She was a college student at 15 and a university professor at 26. She was later provost of Stanford University, and has written several books. |
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![US National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice testifies in Washington before the independent commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks in this April 8, 2004 file photo. [AP/file]](xin_570102181503023865310.jpg)
