Condoleezza Rice

> National Security Adviser (1)

Institutional Affiliations

Government Posts/Panels/Commissions

Corporate Connections/Business Interests

Education

Highlights & Quotes

Rice, Bush's national security adviser, has proved to be a somewhat controversial figure in the Bush administration, with observers alternately arguing that she provides necessary balance to the administration's powerful neocons, or that she is a hapless and under-prepared adviser unable to hold her own in the turf wars waged between Defense Department hawks and Colin Powell's State Department.

Despite the high hopes of many Republicans that Rice might continue to move up the chain of command, her many missteps regarding Iraq intelligence seem to have diminished her political capital. As the Washington Post reported in a front page story on Rice (July 27, 2003), "She has ... become enmeshed in the controversy over the administration's use of intelligence about Iraq's weapons in the run-up to the war. She has been made to appear out of the loop by colleagues' claims that she did not read or recall vital pieces of intelligence. And she has made statements about U.S. intelligence on Iraq that have been contradicted by facts that later emerged. ... Either she missed or overlooked numerous warnings from intelligence agencies seeking to put caveats on claims about Iraq's nuclear weapons program, or she made public claims that she knew to be false." (3)

Among her many misleading statements are her insistence that she never received reports from the CIA casting doubt on whether Saddam Hussein sought uranium from Niger, even though her staff had received memos from the agency; and her claim that the Iraqi military was capable of launching on short notice attacks with weapons of mass destruction, a claim derided by observers as ridiculous.

Commenting on this last allegation, Chuck Spinney, the veteran Pentagon insider (now retired) who has made a career out of debunking misleading claims made by the Defense Department, wrote on his Web site: "Today's Sydney Morning Herald contains an absolutely mind-blowing economic revelation. The mystery surrounding how Saddam successfully hid his Weapons of Mass Destruction has been resolved by America's National Security Advisor, Ms. Condoleezza Rice. Her revelation goes beyond the need for a pre-emptive war, however. It provides a vision that could have a profound impact on the evolution of our industrial culture and future prosperity. ... Ms. Rice revealed that Saddam's weapons programs are 'in bits and pieces' rather than assembled weapons. In her words, 'You may find assembly lines, you may find pieces hidden here and there,' she said. According to the wording of this report, 'ingredients or precursors, many non-lethal by themselves, could be embedded in dual-use facilities.' But there is more! If the Herald's reportage is correct, Ms. Rice implied Saddam's distributed and seemingly inefficient production system represented a current threat serious enough to justify preemptive war. She implied Iraq could quickly assemble and launch these weapons. The key to her vision of this rapid reaction capability (a quick OODA loop) lies in Saddam's 'just-in-time assembly' and 'just-in-time' inventory systems. If her words are accurately portrayed by the Sydney Morning Herald, Ms Rice is suggesting that Saddam Hussein may be an economic genius on a par with Henry Ford and Taichi Ohno." (4)

Rice's ties to the oil industry have also raised some eyebrows. According to a report posted on Corpwatch.org, "At the NSC [Zalmay] Khalilzad reports to Condoleezza Rice, the national security advisor, who also served as an oil company consultant on Central Asia. After serving in the first Bush administration from 1989 to 1992, Rice was placed on the board of directors of Chevron Corporation and served as its principal expert on Kazakhstan, where Chevron holds the largest concession of any of the international oil companies. The oil industry connections of Bush and Cheney are well known, but little has been said in the media about the prominent role being played in Afghan policy by officials who advised the oil industry on Central Asia." (5)

Rice's books include Germany Unified and Europe Transformed (1995) with Philip Zelikow, The Gorbachev Era (1986) with Alexander Dallin, and Uncertain Allegiance: The Soviet Union and the Czechoslovak Army (1984). (1)

(1) White House Biographies: Condoleezza Rice
http://www.whitehouse.gov/nsc/ricebio.html

(2) Hoover Institution: Bios: Condoleezza Rice
http://www-hoover.stanford.edu/bios/rice.html

(3) "Iraq Flap Shakes Rice's Image," Washington Post, July 27, 2003

(4) Chuck Spinney, "Did Iraq use a Toyota Production System to Hide its Weapons of Mass Destruction???" Defense and National Interest, May 1, 2003
http://www.d-n-i.net/fcs/comments/c479.htm

(5) "USA: Unocal Advisor Named Representative to Afghanistan," Corpwatch, January 3, 2002
http://www.corpwatch.org/news/PND.jsp?articleid=1149

(6) "The Hardness of Condoleezza Rice: Huckstress of Israeli Myths by Kurt Nimmo," Counterpunch, May 27, 2003
http://www.counterpunch.org/nimmo05272003.html

(7) "A Pattern of Deception," Tompaine.com, July 29, 2003
http://www.tompaine.com/feature2.cfm/ID/8476