Wednesday, August 10, 2005
Bush Admin RhetIraq: Sec. Rice
Who: Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice
Source: Time #1 and Time #2
Quotes:
When she met with TIME, Rice argued against focusing solely on the rising death toll in Iraq. “It’s a lot easier to see the violence and suicide bombing than to see the rather quiet political progress that’s going on in parallel,” she says. Rice told TIME she believes the insurgents are “losing steam” as a political force, even though their ability to kill and maim at will appears undiminished. When Rice points to “rather quiet political progress” while the country remains embroiled in chaos, even some of her backers cringe. Says a Republican elder statesman: “I don’t have any sense of where she thinks she’s going on Iraq.”
“I do think the insurgency has a problem, which is that as the political process matures and the Iraqis every day accept the political process as their future, the insurgents become more and more isolated from the population and they become nothing but a destructive force,”
A former government official says that when he spoke to Rice after a recent visit to Iraq, she was unresponsive to his concerns about the lack of clarity in U.S. policy. “She just looks at you, and you don’t know if she’s really listening or if she’s getting ready to give her next speech.” “The biggest problem I have with Condi and the Middle East,” says the Republican elder statesman, “is that she really has drunk the ‘democratic transformation Kool-Aid.’”
“And so when I see Iraqis struggling with really hard issues or Afghans struggling with really hard issues, I’m probably less willing to say, ‘Oh, they can’t do it.’ I look at our history, and I say what seemed impossible on one day now seems inevitable. Well, that’s the way great historical changes are. And it’s why I have enormous conviction that these people are going to make it,” Rice tells TIME.
Source: Time #1 and Time #2
Quotes:
When she met with TIME, Rice argued against focusing solely on the rising death toll in Iraq. “It’s a lot easier to see the violence and suicide bombing than to see the rather quiet political progress that’s going on in parallel,” she says. Rice told TIME she believes the insurgents are “losing steam” as a political force, even though their ability to kill and maim at will appears undiminished. When Rice points to “rather quiet political progress” while the country remains embroiled in chaos, even some of her backers cringe. Says a Republican elder statesman: “I don’t have any sense of where she thinks she’s going on Iraq.”
“I do think the insurgency has a problem, which is that as the political process matures and the Iraqis every day accept the political process as their future, the insurgents become more and more isolated from the population and they become nothing but a destructive force,”
A former government official says that when he spoke to Rice after a recent visit to Iraq, she was unresponsive to his concerns about the lack of clarity in U.S. policy. “She just looks at you, and you don’t know if she’s really listening or if she’s getting ready to give her next speech.” “The biggest problem I have with Condi and the Middle East,” says the Republican elder statesman, “is that she really has drunk the ‘democratic transformation Kool-Aid.’”
“And so when I see Iraqis struggling with really hard issues or Afghans struggling with really hard issues, I’m probably less willing to say, ‘Oh, they can’t do it.’ I look at our history, and I say what seemed impossible on one day now seems inevitable. Well, that’s the way great historical changes are. And it’s why I have enormous conviction that these people are going to make it,” Rice tells TIME.
