Word: rice
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...build relations with the Administration but then accepted him as an ally after Bush famously said he had looked into Putin's soul. When King Abdullah of Jordan first proposed in the summer of 2002 that Bush launch a road map to peace for the Arab-Israeli conflict, Rice tried to block it but later became a fervent backer. In 2000 she scorned the use of U.S. troops for nation building, but has undertaken monumental military reconstruction projects in Afghanistan and Iraq. She led the hard-liners' charge to unilaterally abrogate the antiballistic-missile treaty with Russia but showed...
...simply has settled into orbit around the real power centers of U.S. foreign policy: Vice President Dick Cheney and his ally Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. "She's getting this job because she's not a threat," says retired Lieut. General William Odom of the conservative Hudson Institute. When Rice tried to impose order on prewar planning, Rumsfeld ignored her. Vice President Cheney established a broad and powerful shadow National Security Council early in the Administration and used his close relationship with Bush to drive White House decision making. Yet some foreign diplomats praise her all-business style as the executor...
...Rice is virtually certain to be confirmed by the Senate, not least because few Democrats want to be on the record voting against the first black woman named Secretary of State. Still, she will undoubtedly be grilled about her record and management. She faced criticism for placing counterterrorism low on her list of priorities in the nine months before 9/11. And she shares the blame both for letting the now discredited allegations that Saddam Hussein was seeking uranium in Africa get into Bush's 2003 State of the Union speech and for hyping the significance of high-strength aluminum tubes...
...Rice's biggest task in her current job is still unfinished: overseeing postwar-Iraq reconstruction. A year ago she publicly wrested control of that portfolio from Rumsfeld and, with her deputy Robert Blackwill, took a pragmatic approach, accommodating popular religious leaders' demands for an early transfer of sovereignty and nationwide elections. That bought the U.S. some goodwill but increased the chances of a pro-Iran regime taking power...
Washington hard-liners worry that Rice won't stand with them once she faces the moderating influences of Congress and foreign leaders. They say it was British Prime Minister Tony Blair who convinced her the U.S. needed U.N. support for a war in Iraq in August 2002. "She does have this vestigial desire to be loved by the Establishment," says a senior Administration official. At least she knows she doesn't have to win the affection of the man who nominated her. After President Bush sneaked off to Baghdad for a Thanksgiving dinner last November, he laughed about...