Senate panel gives Rice confirmation nod (Agencies) Updated: 2005-01-20 02:10
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U.S. Secretary of State-designate Condoleezza Rice listens to a
question as she testifies before the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations
Committee during the second day of her confirmation hearings on Capitol
Hill in Washington, January 19, 2005.
[Reuters] | WASHINGTON - The Senate Foreign Relations Committee voted Wednesday to
confirm Condoleezza Rice as secretary of state after two days of hearings in
which she faced strenuous Democratic assaults on the Bush administration's
handling of Iraq.
Pending approval by the full Senate,
Rice would be the first black woman to hold the job. She was confirmed by a 16-2
vote with Democrats John Kerry of Massachusetts and Barbara Boxer of California
voting no.
Other Democrats, including ranking member Joseph Biden of Delaware, had said
they were reluctantly voting to elevate Rice to the nation's top diplomatic job.
A vote by the full Senate was expected by Thursday.
As the committee voted, Secretary of State Colin Powell bid farewell to his
"family" at the State Department.
"You were my troops, you were America's troops," the former Army general
said. "You are the carriers of America's values."
He called Rice "a dear friend" and said she would bring "gifted leadership"
to the department.
Rice surmounted two days of sometimes contentious questioning — mostly by
Democrats — on the administration's prosecution of the war.
At her hearing Wednesday, Rice acknowledged "there were some bad decisions"
by the administration on Iraq, as Democrats pressed her on whether the reasons
for going to war were misleading.
Rice insisted that Saddam Hussein was a dictator who refused to account for
weapons of mass destruction. And it was impossible to change the nature of a
terror threat in the Middle East with him leading Iraq, she testified.
Accused by Boxer of "rigidness," Rice responded that as national security
adviser she had "no difficulty telling the president what I think."
But she also told the committee not to expect her to reveal any differences
with Bush as secretary of state. "I want to be clearly understood — we are one
administration, with the president in the lead," she said.
![Secretary of State-designate Condoleezza Rice answers questions from Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., during her confirmation hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington Tuesday, Jan. 18, 2005. [AP]](xin_02010220090869523081.jpg) Secretary of
State-designate Condoleezza Rice answers questions from Sen. John
Kerry, D-Mass., during her confirmation hearing before the Senate Foreign
Relations Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington Tuesday, Jan. 18, 2005.
[AP] | At the same time, though, Rice told the committee "I will tell you what I
think. that is a promise I make to you today."
Biden suggested Rice also advise the president "to read a little bit of
history" and to inform him that in Iraq "it isn't going that well."
Boxer would not be shaken off, even after Rice acknowledged to the Senate
committee that "there were some bad decisions" taken by the administration on
Iraq.
She accused Rice of "an unwillingness to give Americans the full story
because selling the war was so important to Dr. Rice. That was her job."
And now, Boxer said, the toll of American dead and wounded is the "direct
result" of Bush administration "rigidness" and misstatements.
Biden challenged Rice to acknowledge administration mistakes on Iraq and said
he would vote for her confirmation, but only with "some frustration and
reservation."
The Delaware senator, zeroing in on U.S. policy in Iraq as he had during
Tuesday's initial hearing, accused the administration of giving shifting reasons
to justify the war to oust Saddam.
Rice had steadfastly refused Tuesday to say when U.S. forces might be
withdrawn from Iraq. And on Wednesday, Biden cited various rationales for the
war, saying "you danced around it, stuck to the party line."
He told Rice that acknowledging mistakes — such as the claim that Saddam had
weapons of mass destruction and was poised to use them — should not be
considered "a sign of weakness."
Sen. Lincoln Chafee (news, bio, voting record), R-R.I., meanwhile, urged Rice
to consider reconciliation with Iran, which he said was about as repressive as
China was when the Nixon administration approached Beijing for better relations.
But Rice said, "It is really hard to find common ground with a government
that thinks Israel should be extinguished," supports terror groups and is
undercutting U.S. peace efforts in the Middle East.
More than 1,365 members of the U.S. military have died since U.S. troops led
an invasion of Iraq in March 2003.
But Rice has declined to estimate when even some of the 150,000 U.S. troops
may return home.
"I am really reluctant to try to put a timetable on that, because I think the
goal is to get the mission accomplished," she had said Tuesday, "and that means
that the Iraqis have to be capable of some things before we lessen our own
responsibility," she said.
The 18 members of the committee were eager to quiz Colin Powell's designated
successor, although Sen. Richard Lugar, the panel's chairman, planned a vote
following the hearing.
Committee approval would send the nomination to the Senate where confirmation
appears certain — despite unease, especially among Democrats, about reasons
Bush, Powell, Rice and others in the administration gave for going to war in
March 2003 and how they are dealing with a deadly postwar insurgency.
At the State Department, Powell planned a farewell speech at midday, while
employees were told to gather Friday in the lobby to welcome Rice on what would
be her first day in charge of U.S. foreign policy.
Her positions on the war did not stem blistering criticism from Democratic
senators.
Sen. John Kerry, who made Bush's management of postwar Iraq an issue in his
losing presidential campaign, told Rice Tuesday that "the current policy is
growing the insurgency and not diminishing it."
"This was never going to be easy," Rice said in response. "There were going
to be ups and downs."
She said that after the Iraqis have voted on Jan. 30 for a transitional
assembly, the Bush administration would conduct a review.
"We need to be patient," she told Kerry.
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