Futures in Balance as Rice Prepares to Testify [She Lacks 'Strategic Vision' -Reuters]

Reuters ^ | 4-06-04 | Carol Giacomo, Diplomatic Correspondent

[johnny7]

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Condoleezza Rice will be defending two futures when she makes an eagerly awaited appearance before the commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks on Thursday -- President Bush's and her own.

The nation's first black female national security adviser is widely presumed to be a leading candidate for secretary of state if there is a second Bush term. How she performs under intense public scrutiny into the Bush administration's handling of the pre-eminent 21st century U.S. national security threat will affect her credibility as well as that of Bush, who is running for re-election against the presumed Democratic nominee John Kerry. Despite indications that Rice, 49, might return to California after a pressure-cooker initial four-year Bush term, Republican insiders said the secretary of state's job in a second term is hers if she wants it.

After a relatively unscathed first three years as Bush's closest foreign policy aide, Rice became the focus of controversy two weeks ago when former counterterrorism chief Richard Clarke accused her of failing to focus on al Qaeda in the run-up to the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Had it not been reversed, Rice's initial refusal to testify publicly before the commission, after repeated television appearances, would have undercut her ability to win Senate confirmation as secretary of state, Republican sources said. "Her future is tied to how well she does in front of the commission and I think if she wants to be the next secretary of state and does well, then it's hers if that's what she and the president want," said Gary Schmitt, a prominent Republican analyst.

MAJOR POWER FOCUS

Rice's academic background makes it trickier to defend against Clarke's charges, which could pack even more political wallop if, as the independent commission's chairmen indicated, the panel finds the devastating attacks probably could have been prevented. A Russian scholar who helped manage the Soviet Union's fall on the National Security Council staff of Bush's father, Rice assumed the top national security adviser position focusing more on big power ties with Russia and China and on deploying national missile defenses. Terrorism and al Qaeda merited no mention in her January 2000 Foreign Affairs article outlining a foreign policy strategy for the next president and received little if any attention in other speeches and writings before the attacks took place, changing the course of U.S. history.

Rice was the only child of a black preacher and his wife who lived in segregated Birmingham, Alabama, in the 1960s and taught their daughter to aim high and approach life with dignity. She enrolled at the University of Denver at age 15 and graduated four years later with honors. She became an accomplished concert pianist but pursued her career in international affairs. Between White House jobs, she served in the 1990s as provost of Stanford University. Her personal relationship with Bush is the closest of any foreign policy aide. Rice, who is single, often accompanies Bush and his wife, Laura, to Camp David on weekends. Rice has described her job as "translating the president's instincts into policy," a collaboration that produced the Iraq war and the pre-emption doctrine, under which Bush asserts that the United States should anticipate and act against threats before it is attacked. She is widely regarded as smart, articulate and self-confident.

But Rice is often faulted for lacking strategic vision as well as the gravitas to force competing administration giants with often conflicting viewpoints, including Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of State Colin Powell and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, to make decisions on major issues like North Korea. Some analysts see weakness in Bush and Rice's early decision to have the National Security Council play a more low-key role than in previous administrations. Only over time did they retool the formula to have the White House impose more discipline on policymaking.

Bush partisans like defense expert Richard Perle say Rice would make a very good secretary of state. But others say running the State Department is a lot bigger management job than the relatively small National Security Council, which has one client -- the president -- and may not play to her strengths. Insiders expect Rice would be more hard-line on issues than the current officeholder, Powell. Some analysts also wonder if Rice, who has complained in the past about all-consuming jobs, may not be ready to leave Washington. She has expressed interest in becoming national football commissioner and been rumored to be interested in running for Senate or governor in California.

[Ole Okie]

All we have to do to refute this stupid article is to mention:

MADELINE NOT AT ALBRIGHT

[swampfox98]

Rice is heads above any Democrat alive or dead. I wish her well. However, I doubt she'll tell the one truth that helped to bring on 9-11: Our open borders policy has allowed criminals and murderers from every part of the world to simply move in and set up shop.

Rice won't tell the committee that a country which will remain free and strong must have a tight border policy. Because of this I see her testimony as being hopeless in solving the problems.

[Arpege92]

"Rice is often faulted for lacking strategic vision..."

Compared to the liberal liars, I'd say this is correct. How many of these liberal liars enrolled in a university at the height of racial hatred in the 60's at the age of fifteen, then graduated four years later with honors? If that's not strategic vision....I don't know what is.