Will Rice take the fall for Bush?
by Richard Muhammad
StraightWords E-Zine

As the country awaits her April 8 public appearance -- with a separate 9-11 investigation commission closed door appearance for President Bush and Vice President Cheney -- it might not be too early to wonder if Condoleezza Rice will be the administration's fall gal. The White House has been stung by charges an obsession with Iraq led to ignoring alleged terror threats.

“It would be nice if the girl didn't have to take the rap,” said Jodie Evans, co-founder of Code Pink, a women's anti-war group. “She's not the problem; she’s the pawn.”

But given Rice’s job, role in crafting and staunch defense of Bush policy, Evans wasn’t anywhere near defending the Black woman who serves as national security advisor. With the race for the White House this year, her testimony could be crucial for Bush reelection hopes and focuses on a contentious and politically explosive topic.

A book by Richard Clarke, former counterterrorism chief for the Bush and Clinton administrations, helped spawn the controversy. Clarke asserted going after Iraq was uppermost on the Bush administration's agenda before and after 9-11. He maintains that singular focus helped make the president and his advisors misjudge the terrorist threat. The White House responded with a blistering attack on Clarke. The respected career professional was accused of everything from trying to hype book sales to essentially lying about what advice was given the president, and flip flopping on an assessment of White House priorities for national security.

Clarke complained about his tenure under Rice, who was one of the lead White House attack dogs. Rice appeared throughout the media, blasting Clarke and defending Bush policy.

But when asked to answer questions before the commission, as Clarke had done, Rice and the White House balked. Presidential executive privilege was cited as the reason why Rice could not testify. Then came daily media coverage, outcry from family members of 9-11 victims, and fear hesitancy gave the appearance of a cover-up. Bush relented. He agreed to let Rice testify under oath, with the caveat that no other officials would be called and that he and Vice President Cheney would only appear together, privately before the commission.

“When she took the job, she know she would have to fall on her sword, if it came time for it,” said Linda Burnham of the Los Angeles-based Women of Color Resource Center. Burnham has zero sympathy for Rice. The scrutiny is justified because Rice was responsible for intelligence oversight and is just as culpable as anyone else, she said.

Rice, like Secretary of State Colin Powell, hasn’t worked in the interests of Black people, Burnham added. Rice invited the spotlight with high profile media attacks on Clarke, she noted. Burnham believes the White House may have decided to offer a “minor sacrifice,” hoping to close a troublesome chapter in a reelection year.

“They needed to turn the (media) page,” Burnham said. She doubts the move will work.

Rice, once the cover girl for power politics, is now the face of security policy gone awry. In its April 5 edition, Newsweek’s “Conventional Wisdom” gave Rice a down rating. “Trashes Clarke all over TV but refuses to talk to commission under oath. Her halo is tarnished,” it said.

That same week, Time magazine’s cover story asked, “Is Condi the Problem?”

“Her showdown with Clarke got bitterly personal,” wrote Michael Elliot and Massimo Calabresi. “But all the sarcasm and backbiting in Washington could not obscure a central truth: by casting doubt on the performance of the Bush team in the months before Sept. 11, Clarke had taken aim at the competence of Rice, who was not only his boss but is also the person charged with making sure that the President’s foreign policy priorities are straight and that the best intelligence is landing on his desk,” they wrote.

By March 31, an Associated Press story quoted Rice as saying she felt responsible for the false Bush State of the Union claims that Iraq sought to buy uranium from an African country.

The Center for American Progress, a think tank led by former Clinton chief of staff John Podesta, put out a 12-point breakdown of Rice claims that diverge from fact. It includes a March 22 Rice statement that the administration was focused on the terror before 9-11. The counterterrorism task force never met and Bush admitted he didn’t feel “urgency” about terrorist threats, said the center. It cited content in a January 2002 Washington Post article about the book, “Bush at War,” by Bob Woodward.

Bill Fletcher, president of TransAfrica Forum and co-founder of United for Peace, observed that Rice wasn’t “just sitting by the door” as decisions were made. Rice should be on front street, especially given how former Georgia Rep. Cynthia McKinney was pilloried and lost her congressional seat for asking what the White House knew about 9-11 and when it know it, he argued.

Fletcher, like Jodie Evans of Code Pink and Linda Burnham of the Women of Color Resource Center, rejects the notion that Rice’s nearness to President Bush equals progress. That Rice and Powell enjoy positions usually restricted to Whites is noteworthy, but they represent interests that “hold Black interests in contempt,” Fletcher said.

It’s also intriguing how the White House is squirming to minimize political exposure, Fletcher added.
Evans, whose group gave Rice a symbolic “pink slip” last year, isn’t a fan. But she feels balance would mean others who shared power sharing the public scrutiny. Rice doesn’t hold all the responsibility, Evans noted. Yet Rice is capable, intelligent, willingly tied to the old boy network and needs to tell the truth given American lives lost in the World Trade Center and in Iraq, Evans said. “The White House has been shameless in using her to kind of go out front amid the flack,” Evans pointed out.

Fletcher is also clear the buck doesn’t stop with Condi. “She is not the president,” he said.

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Richard Muhammad is editor of StraightWords E-Zine (straightwords.typepad.com) and former managing editor of The Final Call newspaper. He grew up in Baltimore and graduated from Morgan State University.