Lies and Obfuscations. Condolezza Rice. No Higher Honor. A Memoir of my Years in Washington. Crown publishers.

Lies and obfuscations

In her memoirs, Condolezza Rice glosses over at least four glaring failures of her as a national security adviser and secretary of state. First, is of course, the failure to observe the rise of Taliban and the danger Al Qaeda presented to the United States. She writes: "Yes, everyone knew that bin Laden was determined to attack the United States... We were not told how he might carry out such an attack, only that he had been impressed by the partially successful attach on the WTC.” (p. 69)

She already explained that in her congressional testimony that (in light of the above quotation) there was no specific information about the attack. It seems that nothing short of the map of the Manhattan with drawn planes approaching World Trade Center and the letters “Caboom! Caboom!”—in English, not in Arabic because few people in our National Security apparatus knew it—would convince her to take seriously threat from Osama bin Laden. With the warning above only a single meeting with the president was spent on the impending threat.

She mentions that the planning of war with Iraq was set in motion in the spring of 2002. Aha, that means that Bush already decided to go to war early in 2002 and all hullabaloo in the United Nations and leaks to the American media were just a smokescreen to justify invasion. "There was a sense of urgency to do something about Iraq but we wanted to get it right." (p. 177) Did they?
Rice writes about the motives, which brought G. W. to this pathetic conviction but much later, on p. 187. "We invaded Iraq because we believed we had ran out of options. The sanctions were not working [towards which goal?--A. B.], the inspections were unsatisfactory and we could not get Saddam to leave by other means..." I.e., the reason the pressure on Iraq was never to make it to comply with weapons inspectors but to change regime in Baghdad. But to what purpose?
The only thing clear is that she never admits her own influence in bringing about Bush's conviction that he is destined to remake Iraq—but how could that be that this poor man with zero experience and zero interest of foreign countries could have congealed this idea without bouncing it off his trusted national security adviser?

A failure to exploit Khatami presidency to try to stop Iranian nuclear program was another disaster in the making. Drunk by the neocon moonshine speciously provided by John Bolton, she insisted that nothing short of Iran developing something reminiscent of Swiss level of democracy will justify talking to Tehran. To add insult to injury, Bush (and, by the way, Clinton) administrations were incessantly haranguing on the intolerability for Iran to develop nuclear technology thus overblowing its usefulness in the minds of the mullahs. Screams by neocons after the purported “success” of Iraq invasion that Iran would be next target hardly could provide them any reassurance.

Fourth foul-up, may be of the least importance, but of the greatest stupidity was to replace quite docile and pro-American Shevarnadze in Republic of Georgia by the militaristic nut Saakashvili and arm him to the teeth with the purpose of attacking Russia [Comment1]. She repeats the Saakashvili story of some unspecified Russian provocations preceding his murderous attack on the sleeping city of Tshinvali: "Despite Georgia's unilateral ceasefire earlier in the day, South Ossetian rebel forces continued shelling ethnic Georgian villages in and around the capital Tshinvali." (p. 686). Yet, even the EU fact -finding mission prejudiced about the Russians did not find anything to bolster the story of Russian premediation. In fact, it was disavowed on CNN by none else than ex-Secretary of State Colin Powell. 

Georgian project demonstrated her tunnel world vision dominated by Washington power politics with little if any understanding of the world policy. Yet, even liberal well-minded but little versed in foreign policy commentators such as John Stewart bought her lies and obfuscations and lionized her as a wise senior politician. They never asked her questions like: “What particular readings in Russian history suggested to you that the Russians can be cowed, lest by a nation half the size of Switzerland and fifty times as poor?”

            Condolezza demonstrates spectacular ignorance in the matters she professes to be an expert: "...the ever-simmering Russian hatred of Georgia." (p. 681) Georgia, unlike many other territories was never conquered and was incorporated into the Russian Empire by petition of its Christian nobility to be saved from the forced conversion and/or genocide by the Turks and the Persians. Since then, Georgians beginning with Prince Bagrationi and ending with Stalin played important roles in the administration of Russia proper.
   Another feat of bizarre. "Sobchak and his wife were royalists..." (p. 61) What does this mean, in particular, for a country which never had royalty? Once, a Russian humor column ridiculing her haughty ignorance registered her surprise to Putin that she did not see bears on Moscow streets. Next, she asks him why on the negotiation table there is no samovar with vodka because as an expert on Russia she knows for sure that the Russians precede all formalities by drinking vodka from a samovar.

            An expert on the Middle East probably would notice in her memoirs similar glaring combination of self-assurance, haughtiness and ignorance so typical of Condy. Together with Justice Clarence Thomas she belongs to the cadre of affirmative action bureaucrats who cried racism any time anyone questioned their professional competence or personal integrity but now advocate policies of throwing away the ladder, which lifted them to the highest orders of the State.