SFRC Hearing on Iraq - JK and Sec. Rice
ALERT: JK will be on the Ed Schultz Radio Show today at 1:30 pm EST, talking about Rice, Iraq, Iran Syria, and the Pats
This is from yesterday’s SFRC hearing on Iraq. Sec. of State Rice was the witness before the committee and what follows is an excerpt of the exchange between her and JK.
Additional excerpts from the transcript are available here including the exchanges between Sec. Rice and Senators Kerry, Dodd, Hagel, Feingold and Webb.
Video of the SFRC hearing on Jan 10, 2007 is available here (realplayer only).
Video of the SFRC hearing on Jan. 11, 2007 will be added here when it becomes available.
<!KERRY: ... the president said last night that America’s commitment is not open-ended. And if they don’t follow through, they will lose the support of the American people and the Iraqi people.
I don’t want to debate with you whether or not they’ve already lost the support of the American people. I think it’s pretty evident to most people that that’s where we are.
But what does it mean to say it’s not open-ended? What is the accountability measure here? Are you saying, if it’s not open-ended, that you’re prepared to terminate it? Do you agree that it’s not open-ended, first of all?
RICE: Of course, it is not open-ended.
KERRY: If it’s not open-ended, does that mean you’re prepared if they fail to pull out, to terminate? What is the accountability mechanism?
RICE: Senator, I think it’s best to leave the president’s words as the president’s words.
I do think that the accountability rests in two places. First of all, I think the Iraqis now know that if they don’t succeeding returning security to their population, then their population is not going to support them. And…
KERRY: And what are we going to do? That’s the big issue to the United States Congress.
RICE: ... it’s a democratic process.
And, secondly, we will have an opportunity as this policy unfolds
- it’s not going to happen overnight -as it unfolds to see whether or not, in fact, the Iraqis are living up to the assurances that they gave us.KERRY: And what if they don’t?
RICE: Senator, I don’t think you go to plan B. You work with plan A.
KERRY: But that’s not a plan B. That’s a very critical issue.
Here’s video from the SFRC hearing on MSNBC featuring JK and Sec. Rice.
Also of interest
There’s some very interesting follow-up reading in the LA Times article, “Mideast shaking its head”.
Last but not least, there was a very interesting summary of the situation in the comments at The Carpetbagger Report post about the hearing:
Republican Auto Maintenance
Democrat: You better put oil in that engine. Republican: I’m not going to use oil. I’m going to run light and nimble. Democrat: You’re going to wreck your engine. You better add oil. … Democrat: I see you burned up your engine. Republican: I’m going to add oil now. Democrat: You don’t need oil now. It won’t help. Republican: Typical Democrat flip-flopper. You were for oil before you were against it.
What items would you add to the reading list?
6 Comments
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Thanks, Violet. Good post.
I picked up the paper this morning and my first thought was ‘how the heck does Condi shoot lasers out of her eyes like that’?
Ms Rice couldn’t answer the Senator’s question yesterday because there is NO accountability with this administration. I don’t think they know what it means.
Sen Kerry did a great job questioning Ms Rice, especially given the time constraint. Let’s keep the pressure on!
From dailykos’s diary rescue:
I don’t know if I’d call it herculean but it is good.
This reminds me of another one of Rice’s appearances before the SFRC. Senator Kerry was questioning her about whether Iraq was in a civil war. Does she ever give a straight answer based on facts?
That summary is spot on. The ME and the U.S. are shaking their heads.
Thanks for the links!
Leave the President’s words as the president’s words… should we not object to the leader of our nation? If there’s evidence of democracy failing within our own nation, that’s the evidence there. To hear such a statement from Rice is no surprise, but to hear such a statement from the Sec. of State, certainly is.
I believe that in entering this war, Bush knew it was not going to have lasting support. Why else would he have allowed women in the armed forces? Not to down play that women cannot fight in combat—they certainly can—but such an indiscriminate allowance of women in the military is only evidence that Bush knew the support wouldn’t last. President Bush had to find a broader range of volunteers for his war effort. So, he turned to allowing women in combat, even if they volunteered. This more than doubled his potential of enlisting more of our citizens as troops; and that means he was not confident in his initial war effort. Not confident in that the people will follow him; not confident that he will succeed in his goals.
And now, after almost four years of combat, he and his presidency are telling the Iraqi people they need to begin to take responsibility… Last time I checked, when we went into a country and got rid of a dictator, we left the place a complete mess… and then another, more horrible dictator came into power. We call this World War I and World War II.
The Iraq government that is in place as of today has not gained the experience of democracy that the United States has. And it should be mentioned that the United States did not even have guaranteed civil rights until just a few decades ago.
As I’ve said before, forcing a culture to change so rapidly is dishonorable. Everything takes time, and it should never be forced. To force democracy on a peoples is in itself hypocritical. We did not go to Japan after World War II and tell them they better take care of themselves after bombing Hiroshima and Nagasaki. And look at how powerful that nation has grown; although they still have an emperor, the people are united under a constitution, one adhering human rights.
I was glad to see that the panel was not letting her off the hook. Condi appears schooled in the 21st century right wing rhetorical style of trying to run out the clock in hearings. The Republicans were gloating that no one laid a glove on her during the 9-11 hearings—because she blabbed on and on using up her response time. The senators today picked up on each other’s lines of questioning and didn’t let her off the hook.
It was a pleasure to watch this (on internet) - the body language was astounding - defensive Condi with wrinkled brow & then John with his intelligent questioning & wonderful hands - focussed, calm, assured.