Sunday's front page Washington Post story about National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice is such a powerful indictment of her role in the runup to the Iraq war that for the sake of her country's credibility Rice should immediately resign.
The article by Mike Allen and Dana Milbank (a master exposer of Bush Administration lies) makes clear that Rice is either incompetent or a liar. Listen to Rep. Henry Waxman:
"If the national security adviser didn't understand the repeated State Department and CIA warnings about the uranium allegation, that's a frightening level of incompetence....It's even more serious if she knew and ignored the intelligence warnings and has deliberately misled our nation...In any case, it's hard to see why the President or the public will have confidence in her office."
Katrina vanden Heuvel
Sunday’s front page Washington Post story about National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice is such a powerful indictment of her role in the runup to the Iraq war that for the sake of her country’s credibility Rice should immediately resign.
The article by Mike Allen and Dana Milbank (a master exposer of Bush Administration lies) makes clear that Rice is either incompetent or a liar. Listen to Rep. Henry Waxman:
“If the national security adviser didn’t understand the repeated State Department and CIA warnings about the uranium allegation, that’s a frightening level of incompetence….It’s even more serious if she knew and ignored the intelligence warnings and has deliberately misled our nation…In any case, it’s hard to see why the President or the public will have confidence in her office.”
Even sources described as “generally sympathetic” to Rice question her many shifting and contradictory statements regarding Iraq’s alleged uranium purchase and the WMD (non)threat. Several former officials scoffed at the idea that Rice didn’t have time to review the National Intelligence Estimate about an enemy on the eve of war. “It’s implausible that the national security adviser would be too busy to pay attention to something that’s going to come out of the President’s mouth,” said a former NSC official.
Each time the buck passes, another level of incompetence–or deceit–is exposed. It’s a no-brainer that Rice should resign. But that’s not enough. So far, President Bush, the man ultimately responsible for taking the nation to war, has refused to take responsibility for his words. The American people deserve the truth. We have a right to know if Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney or other White House officials manipulated intelligence to justify taking America to war. That’s why we desperately need an independent commission to determine the veracity of other potentially suspect evidence used to convince Americans (and the world) that Iraq posed an imminent threat to our nation.
How you can help:
Click here for contact info for your elected reps. Please ask them to support H.R. 2625, legislation authored by Rep. Waxman to create an independent commission. You can also sign Move.On.org’s nationwide petition by clicking here.
Katrina vanden HeuvelTwitterKatrina vanden Heuvel is editorial director and publisher of The Nation, America’s leading source of progressive politics and culture. She served as editor of the magazine from 1995 to 2019.