he following is the transcript of the hearing on the nomination of Condoleezza Rice as Secretary of State as recorded by FDCH e-Media, Inc.

SPEAKERS:
U.S. SENATOR RICHARD G. LUGAR (R-IN, CHAIRMAN
U.S. SENATOR CHARLES HAGEL (R-NE)
U.S. SENATOR LINCOLN D. CHAFEE (R-RI)
U.S. SENATOR GEORGE ALLEN (R-VA)
U.S. SENATOR NORM COLEMAN (R-MN)
U.S. SENATOR GEORGE V. VOINOVICH (R-OH)
U.S. SENATOR LAMAR ALEXANDER (R-TN)
U.S. SENATOR JOHN E. SUNUNU (R-NH)
U.S. SENATOR LISA MURKOWSKI (R-AK)
U.S. SENATOR MEL MARTINEZ (R-FL)
U.S. SENATOR JOSEPH R. BIDEN JR. (D-DE),RANKING MEMBER
U.S. SENATOR PAUL S. SARBANES (D-MD)
U.S. SENATOR CHRISTOPHER J. DODD (D-CT)
U.S. SENATOR JOHN F. KERRY (D-MA)
U.S. SENATOR RUSSELL D. FEINGOLD (D-WI)
U.S. SENATOR BARBARA BOXER (D-CA)
U.S. SENATOR BILL NELSON (D-FL)
U.S. SENATOR BARACK OBAMA (D-IL)
WITNESSES:
CONDOLEEZZA RICE, NOMINATED TO BE SECRETARY OF STATE
U.S. SENATOR DIANNE FEINSTEIN (D-CA)

LUGAR: The committee is called to order.

Let me begin by welcoming the distinguished new members to the committee who have joined us. I want to introduce Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Mel Martinez of Florida and Barack Obama of Illinois. We're delighted that you have chosen to be on this committee. And we assure you that we will have activity and, we hope, progress. We appreciate you're coming with us. Appreciate all members' attendance this morning.

We will proceed with an opening statement that I will give. In the event that the distinguished ranking member Senator Biden arrives during that time, he will then deliver his statement. If he does not, he'll deliver the statement following Dr. Rice's statement and before our questioning.

And I will ask, after the two opening statements, our distinguished colleague from California, Senator Feinstein, to introduce Dr. Rice.

The Committee on Foreign Relations meets today to consider the nomination of Dr. Condoleezza Rice to be secretary of state.

We are especially pleased to welcome Dr. Rice to the committee.

As a result of her distinguished service as national security adviser to President Bush and her earlier assignments on the NSC, she is well-known to many members of this committee. And we admire her accomplishments.

We're particularly thankful for the cooperation that she has provided to this committee in its work.

The enormously complex job before Dr. Rice will require all of her talents and experience.

American credibility in the world, progress in the war on terrorism, our relationships with our allies will be grateful affected by the secretary of state's actions and the effectiveness of the State Department in the coming years. Dr. Rice is highly qualified to meet those challenges.

We recognize the deep personal commitment necessary to undertake this difficult assignment. And we're grateful that a leader of her stature is willing to step forward.

The secretary of state serves as the president's top foreign policy adviser, as our nation's most visible emissary to the rest of the world, as a manager of one of the most important departments of our government.

Any one of those jobs would be a challenge for even the most talented public servant. But the secretary of state at this critical time in our history must excel in all three roles.

Since 2001, we have witnessed terrorists killing thousands of people in this country and destroying the World Trade Center and a part of the Pentagon.

We have seen United States military personnel engaged in two difficult and costly wars. We've seen the expansion of a nihilistic form of terrorism that is only loosely attached to political objectives, and is therefore very difficult to deter. We've seen frequent expressions of virulent anti-Americanism in many parts of the Islamic world. We have seen our alliances, our international standing and our budget strained by hard choices we've had to make in response to terrorism.

In this context, many diplomatic tasks must be approached with urgency.

In particular, our success in Iraq is critical. The election scheduled for January 30 must go forward. And the United States must work closely with Iraqi authorities to achieve the fairest and most complete outcome possible. At the same time, you must understand that those forces that want to keep Iraq in chaos will commit violence and intimidation, and both Iraqis and the coalition will have to be resilient and flexible in the election's aftermath. The Bush administration and the State Department also must devote themselves to achieving a settlement of the Arab/Israeli conflict; to coming to grips with the nuclear proliferation problems in Iran and North Korea; to continuing urgent humanitarian efforts in Sudan, the Indian Ocean region and elsewhere; to maintaining our commitment to the global fight against HIV/AIDS and other infectious diseases; to advancing democracy in Afghanistan, Ukraine and elsewhere; to repairing alliances with longstanding friends in Europe; to reinvigorating our economic and security relationships in our own hemisphere; and to engaging with rapidly changing national powers, especially China, India and Russia.

LUGAR: Well, even though this list of diplomatic priorities is daunting, it is not exhaustive and does not anticipate unforeseeable events. Just weeks ago, none of us could have predicted that an earthquake and a tsunami would change the face of the Indian Ocean region. And our efforts must include the expansion of our foreign policy capabilities so we're better prepared for crises that cannot be averted and better able to prevent those that can be. I would like to outline a handful of initiatives brought forward by this committee on which I would ask for your assistance. First, the committee intends to report out a foreign affairs authorization bill no later than March. With the support of the Senate leadership, I'm confident the obstacles -- the Senate passes we have encountered in the past will be overcome. It is crucial that the executive branch, especially the State Department, work together with our committee on this legislation. Not only does the authorization fund the department and foreign affairs programs, it also contains personnel and other authorities important for the department to carry on its work. We will be calling upon you for your advice and to exercise your considerable persuasive power at key moments as the legislation works its way through Congress. Second, the Bush administration must continue its efforts to safeguard and destroy vulnerable stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction. To this end, I plan to reintroduce legislation designed to eliminate impediments to the Nunn-Lugar program. And my bill would drop conditions on weapons dismantlement work that in the past have slowed or threatened to slow the urgent task of eliminating nuclear, biological and chemical weapons. Furthermore, the legislation removes the $50 million cap on the president's ability to utilize Nunn-Lugar funds outside the former Soviet Union. I will also reintroduce the Conventional Arms Threat Reduction Act, designed to improve the State Department's efforts to combat proliferation of advanced conventional weapons, including MANPADS. The bill would unify program planning, coordination and implementation of a global strategy into one office at the State Department. Third, we must ensure the State Department has adequate resources to do the difficult job it faces. Under the leadership of President Bush, the administration has requested major funding increases for the State Department and U.S. foreign policy objectives.

LUGAR: You have argued successfully for the creation of new foreign policy tools, including the Millennium Challenge Account, the Global AIDS Initiative and the new Office of Reconstruction and Stabilization. The State Department's Diplomatic Readiness Initiative, launched by Secretary Powell, has made great progress in addressing personnel shortfalls in the Foreign Service. In addition, the State Department is continuing an efficient program to upgrade security at U.S. missions around the world. Even though Congress has failed to provide all the funds requested by the president to strengthen the State Department and U.S. foreign policy capabilities, this committee is enthusiastic about the progress that you have made so far. And we want to work with you to achieve the president's vision of a reinvigorated diplomatic capability. Finally, I would like to highlight a crucial need that has been identified by members of this committee. Our country must improve its capacity to stabilize failing or war-torn nations, and to assist in their reconstruction. If we are to deny sanctuaries to terrorists -- a goal identified by the 9/11 Commission as a top priority -- we must improve planning and organization for post-conflict reconstruction operations. Last year, the Foreign Relations Committee unanimously passed the Stabilization and Reconstruction Civilian Management Act of 2004. I appreciate the State Department's letter endorsing the purposes of S. 2127, and I ask that the letter be submitted in the record. In addition, a study done by the Defense Science Board endorses the legislation. The State Department has now established an Office for Reconstruction and Stabilization as called for in the legislation.

LUGAR: And the new office, headed by Carlos Pascual, is doing a government-wide inventory of the civilian assets that might be available for stabilization and reconstruction tasks, and is also pursuing the idea proposed in S. 2127 of a readiness reserve to enable rapid mobilization of post-conflict stabilization personnel. In addition, I hope the office will develop the concept of a 250- person active duty response readiness corps. In Army terms, this is less than a small battalion of well-trained people, a modest but vigorous force multiplier that would greatly improve our nation's stabilization capacity. This corps will be composed of State Department and USAID employees who have the experience and the technical skills to manage stabilization and reconstruction tasks in a hostile environment. I consider this new office to be one of the most important long- term defenses the State Department can mount against future acts of terrorism. And I would urge the State Department to embrace the concept of a well-funded civilian stabilization and reconstruction capability. Dr. Rice, we welcome you to the committee on this historic moment. We look forward to a dialogue that will illuminate the direction of the United States foreign policy for members of this committee and for the American people who are witnessing this hearing. Now, at this point, I would call normally upon Senator Biden, but I would say in his behalf, his train canceled out, and so he took the next one possible and he will be here momentarily. And we appreciate that very special effort. But I'm going to now call upon Senator Feinstein, our distinguished colleague from California, for her introduction of -- oh, in the nick of time. (LAUGHTER) The distinguished ranking member has arrived.

BIDEN: I'm prepared anytime you say, Mr. Chairman.

LUGAR: Well, proceed.

BIDEN: My purpose in being here today is to get more money for Amtrak. (LAUGHTER)

BIDEN: If I'm somewhat out of breath, it's because I am. There is very few people I'd run from the station for. And I welcome you, as you already have been welcomed. And I'd also like to welcome the new members of the committee. Senator Obama, Murkowski, and also a man who sat in your chair in a different committee, the distinguished senator from Florida.

BIDEN: But the fact is relations with many of our oldest friends are, quite frankly, scraping the bottom right now and we need to heed the advice of the president of the United States just before his first inaugural when he talked about acting with humility as well as force. In the Muslim world, despite the hundreds of thousands of Muslims that we have helped save in Somalia, in Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan and yes, in my view, in Iraq as well, our motives are still suspect, our actions are resented and, as bizarre as it sounds to most Americans, the polls show that Osama bin Laden has a higher approval rating than not only President Bush but than America as a whole in most of those areas. And the result is, despite our great military might, we are, in my view, more alone in the world than we have been in anytime in recent memory and the time for diplomacy, in my view, is long overdue. As a result, we're in, in my view, a less secure position than we should be in the world. That's because virtually all the threats we face, from terrorism to the spread of weapons of mass destruction, to rogue states flouting the rules, to the pandemic diseases that we face now and will face, none of them can be solved solely by American soldiers by themselves. America is much more secure working with and reaching out to others than it is walking alone. And I believe the heart of your mission must be to help rebuild America's power to persuade and to restore our nation to the respect it once enjoyed, quite frankly, for our own safety's sake. But it's going to be very difficult to achieve any of this until we find a way forward in Iraq. This committee has worked hard across party lines to support the president's decision to hold Saddam Hussein to account. In return, prior to going in, we asked the administration to do two things. One was to build a broad and deep international coalition; and two, develop a detailed plan to win the peace. We held extensive hearings. As you know, we had many discussions in this committee back in the bad old days when I was chairman and then immediately after that, when the chairman took over, not about the day after, we held detailed hearings about the decade after. And the administration, in my view, neither generated a deep international coalition nor had a plan to win the peace.

BIDEN: And I think we're paying a very heavy price for it now. We also asked the administration, most importantly, to level with the American people about how hard and dangerous it was going to be, and how long it was going to take and, to our best judgment, how much it was going to cost. You may remember just prior to going in, we had a meeting with congressional leaders -- you were present -- secretary of state, secretary of defense, in the Cabinet Room. And the president, as he often does -- he's engaging -- leaned over to me and publicly said if front of all our colleagues, Joe, why aren't you with me? -- and he called me Mr. Chairman, which I'm not. I'm flattered he did that, but he really understands who the chairman is. He said, Mr. Chairman, why aren't you with me? And you may remember, I said then and publicly many times, Mr. President, I'll be with you when two things occur: one, when you, in fact, indicate what you're going to do after we win -- because winning is not going to be the hard part -- and two, level with the American people about the cost, the price, they're going to have to pay. I think one thing we all learned whether we were for or against the war in Vietnam, whether went or didn't go, the Vietnam generation, is no foreign policy can be sustained without the informed consent of the American people -- informed consent. And I think the only people who leveled with us before the war, like General Shinseki, who said it would take several hundred thousand troops to secure Iraq and the economic adviser Larry Lindsey, who said it would cost upwards of $200 billion, were shown the door. And since the war, Ambassador Bremer has indicated that he said he needed more force and didn't get them. Field generals with whom I've spoken in my three trips since 2003 to Iraq have indicated they need more force. And we keep hearing from the Defense Department and the president, No, we're winning, and we don't need any additional force and we haven't needed additional force for the past two years.

BIDEN: Just last week, very quietly, the administration ended its search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Not much fanfare. The administration concluded that the reason for going to war, weapons of mass destruction, they did not exist. Found nothing and said so quietly. And the National Intelligence Council, the CIA's think tank, concluded that Iraq has replaced Afghanistan as a training ground for the next generation of terrorists: something it was not before the war. Despite all that, we now learn from the president that there's no reason to hold any administration official accountable for mistakes or misjudgments on Iraq. According to the president, We had an accountability moment -- I'm quoting -- and that's called the 2004 election. Dr. Rice, I hope that you as secretary of state -- and I'm confident you will be confirmed secretary of state and I plan on voting for you as secretary of state -- I hope you will demand accountability from the people who serve you if, heaven forbid, they misserve you to the extent that our country has been, in my view, misserved in Iraq. This is not about punishing people or embarrassing the president. It's about learning from our mistakes so we don't repeat them. And the second term is also a second chance and I hope the president will seize it. I hope he will seize it, quite frankly, by rejecting the neoconservative notion about how we're going to, in fact, secure Iraq and the Middle East. So I hope we can start leveling today. We'd like to hear how you see the road ahead in Iraq, what should the American people expect about what we can achieve and when can we hope to achieve it, and how are we going to succeed. I, for one, want to work with you toward success. But I hope we will not get Wolfowitz answers by saying, It is unknowable. There's a whole heck of a lot that is knowable. Iraq is an overwhelming issue. And this administration, like its predecessors and the seven presidents with whom I've served, is only human. Every major problem winds up on the desk of the same senior people -- the same senior people. Every problem. This is not a criticism; it's an observation. It's not possible in my experience of observing seven presidents up close and personal -- it's not possible to give every challenge the attention it deserves.

BIDEN: Consequently, it's understandable that while we're focused on Iraq, other problems remain, if not on the back burner, not getting full attention. But now some of those pots are boiling over, starting with the nuclear program in North Korea and Iran, the dangerous backsliding of democracy in Russia, and genocide in Sudan, and the lack of focus on public diplomacy, which I hope and I expect you'll talk about. Over the past few years, North Korea has increased its nuclear capacity by as much as 400 percent and now may have as many as eight nuclear weapons, which it can test, hide or sell to the highest bidder. You have said, quote, It is unacceptable, end of quote, for North Korea to have nuclear weapons. What does that mean? And what do you propose to do to stop this growing threat? Over the past few years, the reform movement in Iran has been literally crushed in front of the whole world. Surrounded by about 200,000 forces, it very openly just reached out and crushed the democracy movement. So much for the notion of leveraging power. Over the past four years, things have gotten considerably worse in Iran, and it has accelerated its own nuclear program. There may be nothing we can do to persuade Iran not to develop weapons of mass destruction. But our European allies are trying, through a combination of carrots and sticks. They believe they cannot succeed unless the United States engages in this effort. And in my view -- and it may not be true; I'm anxious to hear what you have to say -- we seem to be sitting on the sidelines. What do you propose to do to defuse or, if necessary, defeat this emerging danger?

BIDEN: Over the past few years, President Putin has reversed the course of democratic development, human rights and the rule of law in Russia. The administration has been largely silent. How can we be so concerned about the advancement of democracy in the Middle East and so unconcerned about the regression in Russia? At the same time, we've gotten little in return for turning a blind eye to Russia's regression. Just last week, the press reported -- hopefully it's not true, but I worry it may be -- that Russia is about to sell new missiles to Syria, which would threaten stability and progress toward peace in the Middle East. One of the most important programs to protect American security, the effort to help Russia account for, secure and destroy weapons of mass destruction and related materials, has become mired in red tape that the two presidents need to cut through. How are we going to approach this problem? How are you going to approach it as secretary of state? And finally, the administration has done, in my view, an admirable job of promoting peace between north and south in Sudan, but in Darfur we have watched the terrible tragedy unfold, as militias supported by the Sudanese government have killed as many as 100,000 civilians and chased as many as 2 million from their homes. I literally, as I was getting off the train, spoke to John Danforth who called me. He said he hoped I would keep an open mind about the notion of carrots and sticks to deal with this problem. I'd like to know how it seemed as though that process worked in Libya. I can't believe had we not made the concessions or agreements we made relative to oil and their ability to produce more in cooperation from the West and us in particular, I doubt very much in my meeting that -- I want to be precise -- when I went to meet with Gadhafi I believe at the president's request, I know it was at yours -- I am confident that -- and I think you did an incredible job -- I'm confident it wouldn't have happened unless there were carrots as well.

BIDEN: The last four years we've not seen many carrots but there, and that process started earlier. Four months ago before this committee, Secretary Powell rightly called what was going on in Sudan genocide. Since then the situation has gotten worth. What do you believe the administration and Congress can do now to stop this slaughter and to help African allies develop their own peacekeeping capacity? There's much, much more to talk about and will not be able to be talked about here at this hearing -- relations with emerging powers like China, faultline friends like India and Pakistan, long-time allies in Europe and Asia and, closer to home, the trouble -- the trouble but ignored in many respects, Latin America. I spent a little bit of time in Europe recently and I have one simple message: Get over it. Get over it. President Bush is our president for the next four years, so get over it and start to act in your interest, Europe. But that requires us to engage the hoped for diplomacy, more from the gentlelady from Stanford. We want to hear your thoughts about bolstering capacity to handle post-conflict reconstruction. I listened on the radio and I know you spoke about that. Chairman Lugar has drafted important legislation to do just that, which I was pleased to co-sponsor. And I hope you'll support it. And I intend to ask you about the source of an urgent opportunity: the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. Abu Mazen's election provide a rare second chance to forge a lasting secure peace in Israel and to give the Palestinians a state of their own. I'd like to know what you believe we should do to seize this opportunity and how urgent you think it is. But let me end with something you've talked about and that I hope you'll elaborate on today: putting diplomacy back at the center of American foreign policy. I strongly agree that this is a time for new diplomatic offensive with old friends, rising powers, and even hostile regimes. But it has to be sustained, it has to be persistent, and it has to do as much listening as it does talking. And it has to use all the tools at our disposal, our military might, but also our intelligence, our public diplomacy, our alliances, international organizations, treaties and agreements, and development assistance, trade and investment, even if it is frustrating, even if the payoff takes years, even if it takes a generation.

BIDEN: You often point out to me privately and to others, with some degree of accuracy, in my view, that the corresponding difficulty after World War II corresponding to the situation in Iraq. I'm not sure how applicable it is, but one way it clearly is: a major, major, major, major piece of our post-reconstruction effort in Germany and after World War II was diplomacy, public diplomacy. We convinced many parts of the world that our ideas were ascendant, that we provided -- we provided what is needed and would provide what was needed to bring security to the region and freedom. I remember when Lech Walesa first walked into my office like he did many of us here. He walked up, I said, Congratulations. I said, Solidarity, ya, da, da. He said, No, no, no, Radio Free Europe. And now we are faced with a new but no less dangerous set of challenges and it seems to me we have to recapture the totality of America's strength. Above all, we must understand that those who spread radical Islamic fundamentalism and weapons of mass destruction, although they may be beyond our reach, we have to defeat them. But there are tens of millions of hearts and minds around the world that are open to America's ideas and ideals. There are 1.2 billion Muslims in the world and we have to reach out to them. So I'm looking forward to working with you to do just that. And I'm anxious to hear what you have to say, and I'll have some questions. I thank you, Mr. Chairman, for allowing me to make my statement. And again, welcome.

LUGAR: Thank you very much, Senator Biden. I call now on Senator Feinstein for her introduction.

FEINSTEIN: Thank you very much, Chairman Lugar, Ranking Member Biden, distinguished members of the Foreign Relations Committee. It gives me great pleasure to introduce a friend and fellow Californian, Dr. Condoleezza Rice, as the president's nominee to be the next secretary of state. Dr. Rice's story began 50 years ago with her birth in Birmingham, Alabama. A precocious child, she began piano lessons at age 3, could read by 5, and skipped the 1st and 7th grades. She attended public schools before enrolling at Birmingham Southern Conservatory of Music in 1964.

FEINSTEIN: Her mother and father are here in spirit today. Her father, an educator and pastor, aptly nicknamed his only child Little Star. Today, she is, indeed, a big star. Dr. Rice's family moved to Denver, Colorado, in 1969, where she entered an integrated school for the first time as a tenth grader. Staying close to home, she opted for the University of Denver, and was awarded her B.A. degree with honors at the age of 19. By this time, Dr. Rice was engrossed with Soviet military issues and the related problems of arms control. She began her graduate studies on the topic at Notre Dame, and was awarded an M.A. degree in 1975. Thereafter, she returned to the University of Denver, to finish her dissertation on the Czech military's effects on society. Dr. Rice's career as an academician then brought her to my alma mater, Stanford University, in 1981, where she became an assistant professor of political science. During this time, she authored Uncertain Allegiance: The Soviet Union and Czechoslovak Army, 1948 to 1963, and continued to follow her great interest in football and piano. From 1989 to 1991, in the first Bush administration, she proved her mettle in government for the first time as a senior director for Soviet affairs and East European affairs at the National Security Council.

FEINSTEIN: President George Bush had this to say about her abilities, quote, Condi was brilliant. She disarms the biggest of big shots. Why? Because they know she knows what she is talking about, end quote. It was then back to Stanford in the early 1990s, where she was named provost of the university. She was the first woman, first African-American and the youngest person, at age 38, to hold the position in the school's history. For six years, she managed a $1.5 billion school budget, 1,400 faculty members and 14,000 students. She returned to the White House as the first African-American woman to serve as national security adviser in January 2001. As a young girl, Condi stood at the gates of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue with her father, telling him, that, quote, Daddy, I'm barred out of there now because of the color of my skin, but one day I'll be in that house, end quote. She's delivered on that promise. Now she is the president's choice to be our country's next secretary of state. As both the chairman and the ranking member have so well stated, American foreign policy today is at a crossroads. In Iraq, across the Middle East, in North Korea, in our relations with China and in so many other places we face major challenges. I would submit that Dr. Rice has the skill, the judgment and the poise and the leadership to lead in these difficult times. If confirmed, she will have the deep personal trust and confidence of the president; a real asset. She's been by his side for every crucial national security decision in the last four years. My sense is that the president trusts her implicitly. When Dr. Rice meets with Hu Jintao or Ariel Sharon or Vladimir Putin, there will be no doubt that she speaks for and on behalf of the president of the United States. The problems we face abroad are complex and sizable. If Dr. Rice's past performance is any indication, though, we can rest easy. It's difficult to know ahead of time how anyone will perform as secretary of state. Time and events test vision, facile thinking and resolute problem solving. But indeed, this is a remarkable woman that I introduce to you today, and it is with great pride that I do so.

LUGAR: Well, Senator Feinstein, we thank you for a truly remarkable introduction of our candidate. And, Dr. Rice, before I call upon you for the opening statement, I'm going to ask you to rise and to raise your right hand so that I might administer the oath. Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth so help you God?

RICE: I do.

LUGAR: I thank you. Please proceed with your statement.

RICE: Thank you very much. Thank you, Chairman Lugar, Senator Biden and members of the committee. I'd also like to thank Senator Dianne Feinstein, who, as a fellow Californian, I have admired as a leader on behalf of our state and our nation, and on whose wise counsel I have relied and will continue to rely. Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, it is an honor to be nominated to lead the State Department at this critical time, a time of challenge and hope and opportunity for America. September 11th, 2001, was a defining moment for our nation and for the world. Under the vision and leadership of President Bush, our nation has risen to meet the challenges of our time, fighting tyranny and terror and securing the blessings of freedom and prosperity for a new generation. The work that America and our allies have undertaken and the sacrifices we have made have been difficult and necessary and right. Now is the time to build on these achievements to make the world safer and to make the world more free. We must use American diplomacy to help create a balance of power in the world that favors freedom. The time for diplomacy is now.

RICE: I am humbled by President Bush's confidence in me to undertake the great work of leading American diplomacy at such a moment in history. If confirmed, I will work with the members of this Congress, from both sides of the aisle, to build a strong bipartisan consensus behind American foreign policy. I will seek to strengthen our alliances, to support our friends, and to make the world safer and better. It is a time to reflect on this challenge, and I do so humbly. I will enlist the great talents of the men and women of the State Department, the foreign and civil services and our Foreign Service nationals. And if I am confirmed, I will be especially honored to succeed a man, a man that I so admire, my friend and my mentor, Colin Powell. Four years ago, Secretary Powell addressed this committee for the same purpose that I do now. Then as now, it was the same week that America celebrates the life and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King. It is a time to reflect on the legacy of that great man, on the sacrifices he made, on the courage of the people he led, and on the progress our nation has made in the decade since. I personally am indebted to those who fought and sacrificed in the civil rights movement so that I could be here today. For me, this is a time to remember other heroes as well. I grew up in Birmingham, Alabama, the old Birmingham of Bull Connor and church bombings and voter intimidation, the Birmingham where Dr. King was thrown in jail for demonstrating without a permit. Yet, there was another Birmingham, the city where my parents, John and Angelena Rice, and their friends built a thriving community in the midst of terrible segregation. It would have been so easy for them to give in to despair and to send that message of hopelessness to their children.

RICE: But they refused to allow the limits and injustices of their time to limit our horizons. My friends and I were raised to believe that we could do or become anything; that the only limits to our aspirations came from within. We were taught not to listen to those who said, No, you can't. The story of Birmingham's parents and teachers and children is a story of the triumph of universal values over adversity. And those values, a belief in democracy and liberty, and the dignity of every life and the rights of every individual, unite Americans of all backgrounds, all faiths, and all colors. They provide us a common cause in and a rallying point in difficult times and they are a source of hope to men and women across the globe who cherish freedom and work to advance freedom's cause. And in these extraordinary times, it is the duty of all of us, legislators and diplomats and civil servants and citizens, to uphold and advance the values that are core to our identity and that have lifted millions around the world. One of history's clearest lessons is that America is safer and the world more secure than ever and wherever freedom prevails. It is neither an accident nor a coincidence that the greatest threats of the last century emerged from totalitarian movements. Fascism and communism differed in many ways but they shared an implacable hatred of freedom, a fanatical assurance that their way was the only way, and a supreme confidence that history was on their side. At certain moments, it seemed that history might have been on their side. During the first half of the 20th century, much of the democratic and economic progress of earlier decades looked to be swept away by the march of ruthless ideologies armed with terrible military and technological power. Even after the Allied victory in World War II, many feared that Europe and perhaps the world would be forced to permanently endure half enslaved and half free.

RICE: The cause of freedom suffered a series of major setbacks: communism imposed in Eastern Europe, Soviet power dominant in East Germany, the coup in Czechoslovakia, the victory of Chinese communists, the Soviet nuclear test five years ahead of schedule, to name just a few. In those early years, the prospect of a united, democratic Germany and a democratic Japan seemed farfetched. Yet America and our allies were blessed with visionary leaders who did not lose their way. They created the great NATO alliance to contain and eventually erode Soviet power. They helped to establish the United Nations and created an international legal framework for this and other institutions that have served the world well for more than 50 years. They provided billions in aid to rebuild Europe and much of Asia. They built an international economic system based on free trade and free markets to spread prosperity to every corner of the globe. And they confronted the ideology and propaganda of our enemies with a message of hope and with truth. And in the end, though the end was long in coming, their vision prevailed. The challenges we face today are no less daunting. America and the free world are once again engaged in a long-term struggle against an ideology of hatred and tyranny and terror and hopelessness. And we must confront these challenges with the same vision and the same courage and the same boldness that dominated our post-world war period. In these momentous times, America has great tasks and American diplomacy has great tasks. First, we will unite the community of democracies in building an international system that is based on shared values and the rule of law. Second, we will strengthen the community of democracies to fight the threats to our common security and alleviate the hopelessness that feeds terror.

RICE: Yet when judging a course of action, I will never forget that the true measure of its worth is its effectiveness. Our second great task is to strengthen the community of democracy so that all free nations are equal to the work before us. Free peoples everywhere are heartened by the success of democracy around the globe. Together, we must build on that success. We face many challenges. In some parts of the world, an extremist view threatens the very existence of political liberty. Disease and poverty have the potential to destabilize whole nations and whole regions. Corruption can sap the foundations of democracy. And some elected leaders have taken illiberal steps that if not corrected could undermine hard-won progress for democracy. We must do all that we can to ensure that nations which make the hard choices and do the hard work to join the free world deliver on the high hopes of those citizens for better lives. From the Philippines to Colombia to the nations of Africa, we are strengthening counterterrorism cooperation with nations that have a will to fight terror, but need help with the means. We're spending billions to fight AIDS and tuberculosis and malaria and other diseases, to alleviate suffering for millions and help end public health crises. America has always been generous in helping countries recover from natural disasters and today we are providing money and personnel to ease the suffering of the millions afflicted by the tsunami and to help rebuild those nations' infrastructure. We are joining with developing nations to fight corruption, instill the rule of law and create a culture of transparency. In much of Latin America and Africa, we face the twin challenges of helping to bolster democratic change while alleviating poverty and hopelessness. We will work with reformers in those regions who are committed to the increasing opportunity for their peoples and we will insist that leaders who are elected democratically have an obligation to govern democratically. Our third great task is to spread democracy and freedom throughout the world. I spoke earlier of the grave setbacks to democracy in the first half of the 20th century. The second half of the century saw an advance of democracy that was far more dramatic.

RICE: In the last quarter of that century, the number of democracies in the world tripled. And in the last six months of this new century alone, we have witnessed the peaceful democratic transfer of power in Malaysia, a majority Muslim nation, and Indonesia, the country with the world's largest Muslim population. We've seen men and women wait in line for hours to vote in Afghanistan's first ever free and fair presidential election. We -- and I know you, Mr. Chairman; and I want to thank you for your role in this -- were heartened by the refusal of the people of Ukraine to accept a flawed election and heartened by their insistence that their democratic demands would be met. We have watched as the people of the Palestinian territories turned out to vote in an orderly and free election. And soon the people of Iraq will exercise their right to choose their leaders and set the course of their nation. No less than were the last decades of the 20th century, the first decades of this new century can be an era of liberty. And we in America must do everything we can to make it so. To be sure, in our world, there remain outposts of tyranny, and America stands with oppressed people on every continent, in Cuba and Burma, and North Korea and Iran and Belarus and Zimbabwe. The world should really apply what Nathan Sharansky called the town square test. If a person cannot walk into the middle of the town square and express his or her views without fear of arrest, imprisonment and physical harm, then that person is living in a fear society. And we cannot rest until every person living in a fear society has finally won their freedom. In the Middle East, President Bush has broken with six decades of excusing and accommodating the lack of freedom in hoping to purchase stability at the price of liberty. The stakes could not be higher. As long as the broader Middle East remains a region of tyranny and despair and anger, it will produce extremists and movements that threaten the safety of America and our friends. But there are hopeful signs that freedom is on the march. Afghanistan and Iraq, are struggling to put dark and terrible pasts behind them and to choose a path of progress.

RICE: Afghanistan held a free and fair election and chose a president who is committed to the success of democracy and the fight against terror. In Iraq, the people will soon take the next step in their journey toward full, genuine democracy. All Iraqis, whatever their faith or ethnicity, from Shias to Sunnis to Kurds to others, must build a common future together. The election later this month will be an important first step, as the people of Iraq prepare to draft a constitution and hold the next round of elections, elections that will then create a permanent government. The success of freedom in Afghanistan and Iraq will give strength and hope to reformists throughout the region and accelerate the reforms already under way. From Morocco to Jordan to Bahrain, we are seeing elections and new protections for women and minorities and the beginnings of political pluralism. Political, civil and business leaders have issued stirring calls for political, economic and social change. Increasingly, the people are speaking and their messages is clear: The future of this region is to live in liberty. And the establishment of a Palestinian democracy will help to bring an end to the conflict in the Holy Land. Much has changed since June 24, 2002, when President Bush outlined a few approach for America in the quest for peace in the Middle East and spoke the truth about what would be required to end this conflict. Now we have reached a moment of opportunity and we must seize it. We take great encouragement from the elections just held in the Palestinian territories. And, Senators Biden and Sununu, I want to thank you for representing the United States at those historic elections. America seeks justice and dignity and a viable, independent and democratic state for the Palestinian people. We seek security and peace for the state of Israel. Israel must do its part to improve the conditions under which Palestinians live and to build a better future. Arab states must join to help and deny any help or solace to those who take the path of violence. I look forward to personally working with Palestinian and Israeli leaders and bringing American diplomacy to bear on this difficult but crucial issue. Peace can only come if all parties choose to do the difficult work. And the time to choose peace is now, but there can be no permanent peace without an end to terror. Building a world of hope and prosperity and peace is difficult. As we move forward, America's relations with world's global powers will be critical. In Russia, we see that the path to democracy is uneven and that its success is not yet assured. Yet recent history shows that we can work closely with Russia on common problems.

RICE: And as we do so, you can be assured that we will continue to press the case for democracy and we will continue to make clear that protection of democracy in Russia is vital to the future of U.S.- Russian relations. In Asia, we have moved beyond the false assumption that it is impossible to have good relations with all of Asia's powers. Our Asian alliances have never been stronger, and we will use that strength to help secure peace and prosperity. Japan, South Korea and Australia are key partners in our efforts to deter common threats and spur economic growth. We are building a candid, cooperative and constructive relationship with China that embraces our common interests but recognizes our considerable differences about values. The United States is cooperating with India, the world's largest democracy, across a range of economic and security issues; this even as we embrace Pakistan as a vital ally in the war on terror and a state in transition toward a more moderate future. In our own neighborhood, we are cooperating closely with Canada and Mexico. And with our close neighbors in Latin America, we are working to realize the vision of a fully democratic hemisphere, bound by common values and free trade. But perhaps most importantly, we must realize that America and all free nations are facing a generational struggle against a new and deadly ideology of hatred that we cannot ignore. We need to do much more to confront hateful propaganda, dispel dangerous myths and get out the truth. We will increase our exchanges with the rest of the world. America should make a serious effort to understand other cultures and learn foreign languages. Our interaction with the rest of the world must be a conversation, not a monologue. And America must remain open to visitors and workers and students from around the world. We do not and will not compromise our security standards. Yet, if our public diplomacy efforts are to succeed, we cannot close ourselves off from the rest of the world. If I am confirmed, public diplomacy will be a top priority for me and for the professionals I lead. In all that lies ahead, the primary instrument of American diplomacy will be the Department of State, and the men and women of its Foreign and Civil Services and Foreign Service nationals.

RICE: The time for diplomacy is now. And the president and I will expect great things from America's diplomatic corps. We know from experience how hard they work, the risks they and their families take, the hardships they endure. We will be asking even more of them in their service of the country and of a great cause. They will need to develop new skills and rise to new challenges. This is a time that calls for transformational diplomacy. More than ever, America's diplomats will need to be active in spreading democracy and fighting terror and reducing poverty and doing our part to protect America's homeland. I will personally work to ensure that America's diplomats have all the tools they need to do their jobs, from training to budgets to mentoring to embassy security. I also intend to strengthen the recruitment of new personnel, because American diplomacy needs to constantly hire and develop top talent. And I will seek to further diversify the State Department's workforce. This is not just a good cause, it's a necessity. A great strength of our country is its diversity. And the signal sent to the rest of the world when America is represented abroad by people of all cultures and races and religions is an unsurpassed statement about who we are and what our values mean in practice. Let me close with a personal reflection. I was in government in Washington from 1989 to 1991. I was lucky enough to be the Soviet specialist in the White House at the end of the Cold War. I got to participate in the liberation of Eastern Europe and the unification of Germany, the beginnings of the peaceful collapse of the Soviet Union. It was a heady time for all of us. But when I look back, I know that we were just merely harvesting the good decisions that had been made in 1947 and 1948 and in 1949 when Truman and Acheson and Vandenberg and Kennan and so many wise and far-sighted statesmen in the executive and legislative branches recognized that we were not in an limited engagement with communism, we were in the defining struggle of our time. Democrats and Republicans united around a vision and policies that won the Cold War.

RICE: The road was not always smooth, but the basic unity of purpose and values was there and that unity was essential to our eventual success. No president and no secretary of state could have effectively protected American interests in such momentous times without the strong support of the Congress and from this committee. And the same is true today. Our task and our duty is to unite around a vision and policies that will spread freedom and prosperity around the globe. I've worked directly with many of you and in this time of great challenge and opportunity, America's co-equal branches of government must work together to advance freedom and prosperity. In the preface to his memoirs, published in 1969, Dean Acheson wrote of the post war period that, Those who acted in this drama did not know, nor do any of us yet know, the end, close quote. Senators, now we know. And many of us here were witness to that end. The end was a victory for freedom, the liberation of half of a continent, the passing of a despotic empire and vindication for the wise and brave decisions made at the creation. It is my greatest hope and my deepest conviction that the struggle we face today will someday end in a similar triumph of the human spirit. Working together, we can make it so. Thank you very much.

LUGAR: Dr. Rice, thank you. The committee asked you to make a comprehensive and thoughtful statement and you have certainly fulfilled our request. And we appreciate the time and effort that you have given to that statement and likewise to the responses you've given to all of our questions. Now just for the benefit of senators and those following the hearing, during the past few weeks, senators have submitted to Dr. Rice folios of questions and they have been answered. And they will all be made a part of the record. For the record some senators may wish to reiterate some of those questions today, but we know you will be well prepared because you have already written some remarkable answers that give us a great deal of assurance.

LUGAR: I've consulted with the distinguished ranking member, Senator Biden, about the format, and we have will now have a round of questions and each member will have 10 minutes. And I'll ask members to be respectful of that time so that they will not infringe upon the opportunities of others. And then, following that, if members wish to ask additional questions, we will have a second round of 10 minutes per member. And, if required, a third and even a fourth round. I've consulted with Dr. Rice. She is prepared for a number of hours of questions, and I appreciate that. We'll proceed at least until noon and maybe a little beyond that; commence again at 2 o'clock in the afternoon. If it appears that the hearing might be concluded at some time in the early evening, it would be my privilege to continue on and to preside and to be with any member that wishes to keep asking questions throughout that period of time. And my hope is that members on both sides of the aisle will be prepared at the conclusion of all of the questioning, whether it should occur today or tomorrow, to have a business meeting of the committee so that we might take a vote upon this nomination and that it might be available, therefore, for action on the floor of the Senate on Thursday, January the 20th. Dr. Frist has indicate that after 3 o'clock roll call votes will be in order. My prayer is that one of the roll call votes will be on this nomination.

LUGAR: But in any event, this is a potential road map for us to proceed through the hearing in an orderly way that is fair to all members. And I want to make that point clear. We have offered two full days so that in the event members have a lot of questions, they will have an opportunity to raise them for a complete record of the hearing. Now, Dr. Rice, I'll begin and I'll ask the time keeper to be as vigorous on my questions as on anyone else's for the next 10 minutes. Let me say that last year, I introduced legislation intended to relieve the burdens placed on the Nunn-Lugar program by the Congress in the form of conditions, certifications, reporting requirements. These have occurred over many years and many were points well taken at the time as there was gross distrust of the Russians and, likewise, reason for progress sought through these restrictions. Nevertheless, they have inhibited substantially in some years the amount of work that could be done to actually work with the Russians in cooperative threat reduction, to take warheads off of missiles, to destroy the missiles, destroy the aircraft that might fly over our country, even on the Shchuchye project, to move toward a neutralization of the chemical weapons. So I simply ask -- the goal of my legislation is to provide President Bush with more flexibility and utilization of this program in achieving nonproliferation and dismantlement goals. Does the administration support this legislation?

RICE: Thank you, Senator Lugar. Yes, we do. And I want to start by saying thank you very much for the tremendous leadership that you have given and that earlier Senator Nunn gave to this. And I know that a number of senators on this committee and other committees have been stalwarts in this extremely important initiative.

RICE: Senator Lugar, the president has raised with President Putin the issue of ratification in the Duma of the umbrella on a number of occasions, including most recently when they were at Sea Island. I'm sure that he will raise it when he sees President Putin in the next several weeks. And we are ourselves reviewing what we may want to do about the liability procedures here. It is extremely important that this work go forward. And to the degree that there are bureaucratic logjams that need to be broken, we've simply got to break them. The other possibility, which is that you leave materials unsecured and you don't take as full initiative as you can under these very important programs, is simply not acceptable. And so we are working to see how we can move this forward with the Russians. We had discussions just recently with the Russian defense minister when he was here about moving forward. So you can be assured that we're looking to break whatever bureaucratic logjams have emerged over this period of time.

LUGAR: I appreciate that response. And I'm hopeful that you will work with the president so that will be on the agenda of his meeting with President Putin. Because, clearly, President Putin is cognizant of all of these programs, but bureaucracy in Russia sometimes moves slowly, as it does in our country. To the extent that we can expedite this, this will be helpful. Because, as the president has pointed out, weapons of mass destruction or materials of mass destruction, improperly secured, are the basis for many of the terrorist threats, whether it be Al Qaida or the Russians' fear of the Chechens or whoever. It is there to be picked up and to be utilized without research and difficulty. So these are critical items that I see and I know that you see. Let me also mention that the G-8 meeting, the so-called 10-plus- 10-over-10 program, attempted to enlist our allies in matching the effort of about $1 billion a year that we are putting into these programs: Defense, State and Energy Departments. It's been difficult for them to do that because they do not have satisfactory umbrella agreements in most cases either. So while the president is visiting with President Putin in behalf of the bilateral, perhaps likewise he could mention our seven allies with the G-8 that we really badly need to enlist in this type of work.

RICE: I agree completely, Senator. In fact, the president has talked to President Putin about the difficulties that others are having extending money. I think one of the really great breakthroughs was when we came up with this Global Partnership Initiative, because it permitted to us multiply the resources that the United States was putting in by resources from Japan and Italy and Great Britain and other places. And it's important that those resources get spent. This is one part, an extremely important part, of a broad nuclear nonproliferation initiatives agenda that we are pursuing with our allies to try and deal with this very nettlesome, difficult problem.

LUGAR: And, of course, also, as the president visits with the German leadership and perhaps the French leadership and what have you, they are parties to this. RICE: They are.

LUGAR: And are hopefully eager to be a part of it.

RICE: In fact, I think the nonproliferation story is a quite remarkable story of cooperation among the major allies. We have outstanding cooperation with France and Germany and our other allies.

We have been working, for instance, in something called the Proliferation Security Initiative, which 60 countries are now party to and a number of others have expressed interest, to try to interdict -- consistent with international law to try and interdict suspicious shipments.

This has given us new means of intelligence cooperation, law enforcement cooperation, naval cooperation. And these are very important. We work best when we're putting the alliance to use and to work on difficult problems together.

LUGAR: And this is a great way to do so.

I would add in agreement, this is also important, the AMEC agreement. We have enlisted the support of Norway and friends who want to work in that area, particularly on the submarine issues and the pollution of nuclear material that may have been dumped or could be dumped without activity on our part. Let me turn to another issue. In your answers to questions for the record -- and I cite that because I've asked this question for the record and you have responded -- I particularly appreciate your response on the Law of the Sea Convention.

You urged the committee to favorably report it out and said that you will work with the Senate leadership to bring the convention and implementing agreement to the floor vote in the 109th Congress.

And you also said the following: Joining the convention will advance the interests of the United States military. The United States, as the country with the largest coastline and the largest exclusive economic zone, will gain economic and resource benefits from the convention. The convention will not inhibit the United States nor its partners from successfully pursuing the Proliferation Security Initiative. And the United Nations has no decision-making role under the convention in regulating uses of the oceans by any state party to the convention.

LUGAR: That's clearing up an issue sometimes raised by opponents of the convention. Finally, you said, The convention does not provide for or authorize taxation of individuals or corporations. I cannot think of a stronger administration statement in support of the Law of the Sea Convention. Should I assume that the president would like to see this convention passed as soon as possible?

RICE: Would certainly like to see it pass as soon as possible. And, Senator, I think you know the history of this better than I, as well as senators like Senator Warner and others who worked very hard to make sure that some of the early concerns about the convention were addressed and that the convention as it now stands serves our national security interests, serves our economic interests. And we very much want to see it go into force.

LUGAR: I thank you for that response. In your responses to questions for the record, you embraced the partner's role as the lead on an interagency team working for a more cooperated approach to stabilization and reconstruction efforts, a role that I've been pushing, as Senator Biden and many others in our committee, as a new core mission for the Department of State. Your support for the department's Office of Reconstruction and Stabilization in the department will be crucial as it seeks the personnel, resources and budget to succeed. Can you outline your own vision for the Department of State in this area? And how would you integrate USAID with this effort?

RICE: We have learned a lot of lessons over the last several years, and one of them, I think, is that we need to be better able to marry civilian expertise in reconstruction and stabilization with whatever we need to do militarily to stabilize the situation. These post-conflict situations require a wide range of skills and talents that we've had to assemble in a rather ad hoc fashion from within the United States government when we faced Afghanistan or faced Iraq.

RICE: And frankly, we will face these again. We face it in Liberia. We face it in Sudan -- we will face it in Sudan if those situations can be stabilized. And so, we have been and I've been very heartened by the work that has been done on this new Office for Reconstruction and Stabilization. I know, Senator, that you and your staff have had a lot of conversations, first with the people who were on my staff in the NSC who were interested in this. And now that the office has been created in the State Department, I've had briefings on what Carlos Pascual and his people are already doing. We are going to try to make sure that they have the resources for this first phase effort that they are in. I think we need to look at what further functions and what further requirements there are for this especially important task. But the State Department does need to lead this effort. There is great enthusiasm in the State Department for being able to do this as I've talked to people in briefings and the like. And so, the office will not only have my support, but I'm counting on it to be able to help us make better efforts as we face these stabilization problems around the world.

LUGAR: Great. And we'll count upon you for leadership of our legislative efforts so we work together on this.

RICE: Thank you.

LUGAR: Senator Biden? BIDEN: Thank you very much. Dr. Rice, you're, I'm told, a great football fan. I notice when I go in your office you are. I'm not going to ask you this under oath. But are you aware who the national champions of 1-AA football were last year?

RICE: Did they come from Delaware, sir? BIDEN: Yes, they did.

(LAUGHTER)

University of Delaware.

Thank you very much.

I knew you'd know that. Very important point.

Dr. Rice, I would like to talk to you about Iraq if I may start there. You quote eloquently and you write eloquently in your opening statement, But when I look back, I know that we were merely harvesting the good decisions that had been made in '47, '48 and '49, when Truman and Acheson and Vandenberg and Kennan and so many other wise and foresighted statesmen in the executive and legislative branch recognized that we are not in a limited engagement with communism, we're in the defining struggle of our times.

BIDEN: Based on discussions over the years, I think we agree that the defining struggle of times right now is this debate, this struggle between freedom and radical Islamic fundamentalism. That's not the only problem in the world, but it's the one I think takes a long time.

And Truman and Acheson and others came up with and leveled with the American people about how long and hard and expensive it was going to be. The Truman Doctrine, the establishment of NATO, the Bretton Woods agreement, the Marshall Plan, well over 300,000 troops in Europe. We still have a considerable number of troops in Europe. And we flat-out told the American people. And yet I'm a little concerned that the American people don't have a clear sense of what is expected of them in this defining struggle that we always talk about. And it starts -- it doesn't start, but the focus right now is primarily in Iraq. And we have an exit strategy, which I happen to agree with. The ultimate exit strategy is a stable, secure Iraqi government brought about as a consequence of a series of elections -- this one just being the first of a series -- and the training of the capacity -- providing the Iraqis with the capacity to maintain order and peace not only in the streets, but along their borders.

And toward that end, we had significant discussions in this committee prior to going in, and a number of experts, from RAND to others, indicated that we were going to need somewhere in the order of 5,000 European paramilitary police types in addition to the military.

BIDEN: I think the number was 5,600.

And my first question is, did your outfit write a report suggesting how many military forces you thought -- your team thought would be needed in Iraq?

RICE: No, Senator, we did not write a report of that kind. We, obviously, were aware of all of the literature out there about how one stabilizes. And we looked at that literature. We considered it. But as a part of a team, that is the National Security Council, and that is the -- where the president's primary national security advisers sit, I sat through briefing after briefing that assessed the plan for both the war and for the immediate postwar period and, as a part of that plan, the troop levels that were recommended by General Franks and by his commanders. The president had good military advice from General Franks, good military advice from Chairman Myers, who represents, of course, not just himself but the corporate body of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. And they were very clear that they believed that the plan that they were going to execute, including phase four, that is the stabilization phase, was adequately resourced in terms of troop strength.

BIDEN: In retrospect, do you think it was adequately resourced? I mean, I'm not trying -- what do you think now? Everybody gets a chance to determine whether or not what they signed onto or thought, recommended by professionals, was workable or not. Do you think it was adequate now, looking back?

RICE: Senator Biden, I would not presume to try to give the president military advice. But I do believe that he got good military advice and I do believe that the plan and the forces that we went in with were appropriate to the task.

RICE: We did meet with some unforeseen circumstances, most importantly as we swept through the country really rather rapidly, the core of this insurgency, that is the Baathists and many of Saddam's loyal forces, melted into the population. They didn't stand and fight. When they reemerged, they reemerged as an insurgency I think that, frankly, cannot be dealt with by military power alone and certainly not by overwhelming military power, but must now be dealt with through the political mobilization of the Iraqi people -- which is why these elections are so important -- through economic reconstruction -- and I would be the first to say we want very much to accelerate that reconstruction -- and most importantly through Iraqi forces. BIDEN: So bottom line, getting a chance to look back you think there were an adequate number of forces beginning, middle and now? I mean, you have no -- you wouldn't, if you got to go back, change the force structure?

RICE: I don't think I would, Senator.

BIDEN: OK. You're aware that Mr. Bremer suggests that we needed -- he is the former, as we all know, ambassador, who was in charge up until we handed over sovereignty. And I've made three trips since 2003. And every trip I make, I meet with the flag officers and I have -- they're all telling me they need more force and they needed more force. But the reason I asked the question is not to assess blame, because who the heck knew? This was -- as I said to Bremer and I think the three of us were together the first time. I said, Mr. Ambassador -- in the first meeting after Saddam was dethroned and we were in Baghdad -- I said, If the Lord Almighty came down and sat at this table and gave you the right answer to 60 percent of all of the difficult questions you'll have to answer, you still only have an even chance of succeeding. No one's ever done what we're trying to do. And I support it, the effort. But it concerns me that in retrospect you still think things were kind of -- you know, the force structure was appropriate. Which leads me to this issue of one element of our exit strategy and that is the training of Iraqi security forces.

BIDEN: On October 21st last year, you said, The Iraqi security force will number 125,000 by the end of the year. There will be 145,000 security forces by February, and 200,000 by the time of the permanent election. And in March of last year, Secretary Rumsfeld said, We now have 200,000 Iraqi security forces that are out there providing security in the country. And a month later he said 210,000 uniformed and called it, quote, an amazing accomplishment. And, now, what I'd like to know is what you all mean by trained Iraqi security force. Do you mean someone who we give a uniform to, someone who had been in the Iraqi military before or the police? Or does trained mean someone capable, absent a physical presence of the United States or a coalition force with them, to, in fact, do their job -- whatever it's assigned in whatever region they're in? What do you mean by trained ?

RICE: By trained, Senator, what we've been trying to do is take Iraqis -- some of whom have served before, some of whom have not -- and to give them, depending on whether it's police training or army training or commando training, the skills that they need to be able to secure the country. Now, we have had to, in many cases, understand that the initial training is just that, it's initial training, and that you face a number of other issues. You face issues of leadership. One of the problems that we've had with the desertion rates that we faced in the Iraqi security forces and with some of the problems of -- I'll call it discipline broadly -- is that we think there has been a leadership gap. We learned early on that Iraqis were not going to train and then serve coalition leaders and so...

BIDEN: What have we done about that leadership?

RICE: We have a very active program now that Prime Minister Allawi is very involved in himself of vetting proven leaders in the former Iraqi security forces to bring top-down leadership to those people. NATO, of course, has put in a training mission that is devoted to training leadership and...

BIDEN: That's not even set up yet, is it?

RICE: Well, it's -- we have, on the ground...

BIDEN: I'm not criticizing. I just want to -- look, here's the reason I asked this question. I talked about earlier -- and my time is about up. I talked earlier about the need to level with the American people. When you say we have 200,000 trained security forces and the secretary of state says we have 210,000, the impression of the average American is we've actually trained up people who can do the job. Now, I've made four trips there. Three since Saddam has come down. I've spent a lot of time. I've gone to the training facility for police in Jordan. With the American head trainer, I said without anybody there and I believe my friend and person who has an ideological bent considerably different than mine, my friend from South Carolina was there. I said, There's no one in the room. Please cut all the malarkey. Is this training program worth a darn? And the answer was no -- from our own trainer. I asked the head of the Jordanian police force who was there and the Canadian Royal Mounted Policeman who was there as the triumvirate running the operation. I've been back and spoke with a General Petraeus on two occasions. He is a first-rate soldier. He has indicated he's just basically beginning. How many -- and this is my last question. How many security forces do you think are trained that can shot straight, kill and stand their ground? I don't mean in a uniform. I mean real, live guys that our Marines. I was spent four hours in Fallujah. Our Marines are not real anxious to stand next to and count on a lot of Iraqi forces except the few that were trained as special forces. Now, how many do you really think are trained that Allawi can look to and say, I can rely on those forces ?

BIDEN: What do you think that number is?

RICE: Senator, I have to rely on what I get from the field. And by the way, I think that the trips that you've made and the trips that the others have made have given us information that we can go back with. And I appreciate your doing that. We think the number right now is somewhere over 120,000. We think that, among those people, there clearly continue to be questions about on-duty time, that is, people who don't report for duty. And so this is being looked at. We are trying to provide for some of these units mentors who can help, trying to provide leadership from the Iraqis themselves that can help these people. But this is the reason that Gary Luck has gone out, at Secretary Rumsfeld's direction, to take a hard look at the training program to see what General Petraeus, who, as you say, is a terrific soldier and has a lot of experience in Iraq, what he's been able to achieve; to work with the Iraqis to address some of these problems of leadership and morale and desertion in the armed forces and in the police forces; and to look at some of the equipping of the police forces. But I do want to note, Senator, that the Iraqis are making a lot of sacrifices here...

BIDEN: No question.

RICE: ... their soldiers, their police, in places like Fallujah, in places like Samarra, in places like Najaf. They have played an active role in their security. But it is a process that takes some time. We believe that we've made some progress. We have more progress to make.

BIDEN: Well, I thank you for your answer. I think you'll find, if you speak to the folks on the ground, they don't think there's more than 4,000 actually trained Iraqi forces. I strongly urge you to pick up the phone or go see these folks. And the reason I press it is not that the Iraqis aren't sacrificing. They are. But that's almost irrelevant in one regard. The exit strategy for America is a trained force of several hundred thousand people. We're talking about a year or more to get anywhere close to that. We should level with the American people about it. But after you take a hard look as secretary of state, I'd like to talk with you more about that. Thank you.

LUGAR: Thank you, Senator Biden. Senator Hagel?

HAGEL: Mr. Chairman, thank you. Welcome, Dr. Rice.

RICE: Thank you.

HAGEL: Mr. Chairman, I have a statement that I would ask to be included in the record.

LUGAR: It'll be included in full.

HAGEL: Thank you. As has been noted here, and I think eloquently stated by Senator Feinstein, you come before this committee impressively qualified, well prepared. And it is a nomination all of America can be proud of. And I mean that sincerely.

HAGEL: So thank you for offering yourself for another four years of very engaging, responsible leadership. We appreciate that. I also want to note, Mr. Chairman, for the record, the good work of Secretary Powell and Deputy Secretary Armitage. I noted, Dr. Rice, that you mentioned them in your statement. The work that the Powell-Armitage team has done for this country over the last four years has been significant. All those who were part of that team need to be acknowledged, as well. So thank you, Dr. Rice, for noting Secretary Powell's leadership. I want to pursue, to some extent, some of the same line of questioning on the same subject, as well as other subjects, in my 10 minutes that Senator Biden was talking about: Iraq. He left off with exit strategy. Would you explain to this committee what you and the president see as an exit strategy for America from Iraq, which would be, I suspect, connected to a post- January 30th election which will provide an elected Iraqi national assembly? What are our plans after that?

RICE: Well, we do have some things that we have to accomplish after the elections. Senator Biden has talked a lot about the training of Iraqi security forces. I think that's probably in many ways our most important task. The task of the Iraqis is to find a way forward from their elections for political reconciliation. And we can, of course, try to help in that and do what we can to support that effort. But that's largely an Iraqi task. I think for us to try and improve Iraq's capability to defend itself. And I will just say, I have talked with people from the field and I recently talked with General Casey, who was back here, and others. I think they think that they are doing relatively well on starting to get the numbers up for Iraqi security forces, but that they do need to address these questions of leadership, which then lead to problems with desertion and the like; and that they need to do something that is actually quite promising, which is to work with the Iraqis who have some ideas themselves about how some of the security forces might be restructured.

RICE: So we will focus very heavily I think on trying to give the Iraqis or help them get more capacity on the security side. It is also the case that, of course, we will continue to seek the terrorists, and to help them fight the war on terrorism that they are now fully engaged in, to try and continue to help in building capacity in the Iraqi ministries. Because ultimately, the coalition is there because the Iraqis lack certain capacities. And if we focus in this next period after the election on helping them to build those capacities beyond where they are now, I think we will have done a major part toward the day when less coalition help is needed across the board.

HAGEL: May I just ask a follow-up to that? How will that change from what we have been doing? Can you give this committee some specifics? Of what you've stated, you framed clearly. I think we understand what you've said. I support what you're talking about, your objective. But how will that change from what we have been doing? Fewer troops? Less troops? More NATO troops? Or what will envision the change in what you're anticipating our role to be and connect that to an exit strategy?

RICE: Well, our role is directly proportional, I think, Senator, to how capability the Iraqis are. And so, as Iraqis become more capable, then I would I assume certainly our help will be needed less. I am really reluctant to try to put a timetable on that, because I think the goal is to get the mission accomplished and that means that the Iraqis have to be capable of some things before we lessen our own responsibility. But we will be working with a newly elected government. And I'm quite sure that they're going to have their own ideas about how we move forward to improve security. The Iraqis will take more and more responsibility for fighting the terrorists, for rooting out the Baathists, and we have to help them get there. If I could just add, Senator, we also, of course, have a major task of continuing on the reconstruction front to employ the resources that were given to the executive branch by the Congress so that we can help the Iraqis with their reconstruction tasks.

RICE: But I see it as a diminution of our responsibility over time as the Iraqis become more capable, so we need to focus on building their capabilities.

HAGEL: Will that will require a change of policy?

RICE: I don't think it requires a change of policy. We have all had over time an evolution of attitude, which just comes from the fact that as you work with increasingly more representative and legitimate Iraqi governments, they have more say in how this is all done. And I think that that's only appropriate and right. We are no longer in occupation of the country as we were under the Coalition Provisional Authority, and so this has become a very intensive partnership with the Iraqis to get these tasks done and I think that will probably continue to...

HAGEL: Now let me ask you on the basis of troops, if I have read accurately, and you noted this, General Casey's statements regularly. When some of us were over there last month, we met with General Casey as well as other general officers. Will that mean that 150,000 or so American troops we have there today will now be refocused on acceleration of training? Or what does this mean in the way of actually accomplishing what you are talking about?

RICE: Well, we certainly right now are very focused on security for the election. And while that will pass on January 30th, there will continue to be important security tasks to make sure that the initial stages for this new government are secure. But one of the things that the Luck mission is to try and determine is what the path forward is with the Iraqis in terms of security. Are we continuing to train the right security forces? What ought to be the roles and responsibilities of coalition forces in training versus active security? How much can the Iraqis take on some of these active security roles themselves? So, we thought that the time just before the election and leading to after the election was an ideal time to have this mission. And I think we will get some answers from that mission.

HAGEL: Thank you. Let me move to the Israeli-Palestinian issue. What do you and the president envision as a new role or a different role for the United States now as a result of the Palestinian elections? For example, are you contemplating a special envoy? How are we going to engage more deeply and widely than we have in the past? Or are we going to? Give this committee some sense of where we're going in the next year.

RICE: We all believe, and most especially the president, that we have a really good opportunity here, given the election of a new Palestinian leader, and given the Israeli Gaza withdrawal plan, which is linked to the West Bank through the four settlements that would be dismantled in the West Bank as well. We think this is a moment of opportunity. That means that there is going to have to be engagement at all levels. I expect, myself, to spend an enormous amount of effort on this activity. I can't substitute for the parties and their willingness to take on their responsibilities, and that's the message that we have to keep sending. We've had to note that how hard this road is going to be was in evidence during this last few days. And we've pressed very hard for the Palestinians to take on terrorism because we're not going to get very far if there is terrorism from the Palestinian militants. But you can be sure that we will have very active engagement because we think this is a time of responsibility. I think I need to, for the time being, demure on the question of a special envoy. No one has objections in principle to the idea of an envoy, but it is a question of whether that is appropriate to a particular point in time in the process that we're involved in.

HAGEL: But as secretary of state, you intend to be very engaged with considerable activity as we go forward?

RICE: Absolutely. Because, Senator, I think we can afford to miss this opportunity if the parties themselves are willing to really take advantage of the opportunity.

HAGEL: I probably have time for one question. That's going to be on more -- one more question -- immigration. You noted in your prepared delivery -- and I thought it was excellent; you covered a number of the areas that we all have interest in and we'll wanting to deeper in them. But you talked about exchange programs. You hit on that, I thought, very important point: immigration reform. Is the president going to push for immigration reform?

RICE: As you know, the president has been concerned about and a proponent of immigration reform going back to the time that he was governor of Texas, when he faced these issues as governor. He has a proposal on the table for a temporary worker program that would serve the purposes in a humanitarian sense, in that it would help to alleviate what is really a humanitarian crisis for us. It would help us economically, because matching willing workers and willing employers is an extremely important thing for our economy when there are jobs that Americans will not take. It's not an amnesty, and the president has been clear about that. But it also has for our security real implications, because if we are not asking our border guards and our border personnel to deal simultaneously with immigration that comes out of economic circumstances and dangerous border infringement that comes out of terrorism, and they have a more regularized way to deal with the former, we think that that will make it easier to deal with some of the terrorism and concerns about bad people coming to do bad things.

HAGEL: I'm going to reintroduce my comprehensive -- I think, the only bipartisan immigration reform last year. I'm going to reintroduce it. I look forward to working with you on this. I don't think there is a more urgent problem America has to deal with today; far more important than Social Security, in my opinion, than this immigration reform issue. So thank you. Mr. Chairman, thank you. LUGAR: Thank you, Senator Hagel? And, Senator Sarbanes?

SARBANES: Mr. Chairman, thank you very much. I want to, first of all, welcome our new colleagues to this committee, Senator Murkowski and Senator Martinez on your side of the aisle, and Senator Obama on our side of the aisle. We're very pleased to have them join the committee. And, Dr. Rice, I want to join all of my colleagues in welcoming you here before the committee today. The post for which you've been nominated is, obviously, an extremely important one, perhaps the premier post in the Cabinet. And in an independent and interconnected world, where events that happen thousands of miles away literally within minutes can affect our own economy or our health or our national security, the secretary of state can make a critical difference in our everyday lives. In my view, a secretary who forges meaningful partnerships to foster peace, reduce global poverty and hunger, promote democratic values and address emerging threats can set our country on a course to greater security and prosperity.

SARBANES: By the same token, I think the secretary who adopts a unilateralist approach in the international environment may miss important opportunities to prevent conflicts and to build alliances. And in that regard I just note that it's not enough to have the ear of the president. I think the secretary of state must also win the ear of the world. I do hope -- and before I turn on my first subject I want to cover -- first, I've watched Senator Lugar work assiduously on this cooperative threat reduction issue. I think he and Senator Nunn provided exemplary leadership and Senator Lugar, assisted by others, Senator Biden and others on this committee, have continued to pursue that issue. And the only counsel I would give you is listen to Senator Lugar on the cooperative threat reduction question. He knows the issue. He's lived with it. He's invested an incredible amount of his own time and effort to try to make it work. And I would hope the administration would, in effect, follow his counsel and guidance on this issue. I know of no one who knows the issue better or whose advice is more measured and more reasoned than that of the chairman. I'd extend the same advice, if I may be so bold as to do so, in terms of hoping you would listen to Senator Biden and Senator Hagel as they have an interchange with you about Iraq. They've both been there now a number of times at some risk to themselves, obviously, as anyone who goes out there well knows. And it seems to me again, that's an instance in which the counsel and advice they've been giving is perceptive. It's measured. It's tough minded and I would very much hope the administration would listen to that. Now, my text, if I can use that term for the question I want to put to you, is this new book by T.R. Reid, a very distinguished journalist, which has just only recently come out, The United States of Europe: The New Superpower and the End of American Supremacy.

SARBANES: And I want to talk some economics with you here this morning. I looked through your statement quickly and other -- and a couple of references to prosperity and to free trade. There's not much in it on economics and I think that's a very important part of the dimensions we have to discuss here. In a review of this book that recently appeared in the New York Times, they said that, you know, small things happen. We're not aware of them, but over time they gather and then they become instrumental. I mean, they really end up having a very significant impact. Let me just quote here. Sometimes major events take place quietly, their import obscured by the hub-bub of more arresting happenings. Only with time is the shift perceptible. And in that regard, I'd like to show you just three charts to set the context. The first is a chart that shows the U.S. trade deficit.

Since Senator Dodd is an important part of our efforts to get a trade surplus, I don't want to close him out of this discussion.

DODD: I've been in your shadow for years.

SARBANES: I mean, it's pretty apparent what's happened here: an incredible deterioration in recent years in the U.S. trade deficit, and it's estimated that we're now running well over $600 billion a year; by far the largest trade deficit in our history.

SARBANES: Now, of course, when you look at the current accounts -- it's a somewhat broader measure, of course, of the situation -- we have the same situation: again, an incredible deterioration in the current account situation and much of it highly accelerated in the last four or five years. And the end consequence of running these large trade deficits and these large current account deficits -- astronomical for us in historical terms -- is to give us this net investment position. Now, these are trillions of dollars over here. The others were billions of dollars. But our net investment position is now -- well, it's now going well -- this is 2003, so we're now well over the $3 trillion in the deterioration of our net investment position. Now, it seems to me this ought to be a matter of very, very real concern. I mean, Chairman Greenspan, testifying before the Congress, said that The rate that we're running these deficits and accumulating external debt is unsustainable. Countries that have gone down this path invariably have run into trouble and so would we. And just a few days ago, the president of the New York Federal Reserve Bank, Timothy Geithner, said in a speech, The size and concentration of external imbalances in the system are at an unprecedented scale: between 5 percent to 6 percent of GDP in the instance of the current account deficit. What's new is that we are significantly more dependent today on the confidence of the rest of the world in U.S. economic policy and the safety and stability of our financial markets. SARBANES: Now, The Economist recently said -- talking about the dollar as the reserve currency and the challenge now to the dollar that's coming from the euro -- says, Never before has the guardian of the world's main reserve currency been its biggest net debtor. And The Financial Times earlier this year, in an editorial entitled Borrowing from the rest of the World, warned, Like Tennessee Williams' ill-fated character, Blanche DuBois, the United States has long been dependent on the kindness of strangers. Foreigners' hitherto insatiable appetite for dollar assets is what has enabled the U.S. to keep running on credit for so long. Like Ms. DuBois' dysfunctional relationships, this one is symbiotic but potentially hazardous. How serious do you regard this situation as being?

RICE: Well, I know, Senator, that the president and his economic team regard it as a serious set of issues that they will be dealing with. The president has talked about the importance of the fundamentals of the American economy, strengthening the American economy, the importance of a strong dollar which continues to be our policy. He's talked about the need for budget discipline, and I think he is working toward a budget that will express that.

SARBANES: Do you consider this a matter for your agenda? After all, it affects American power and the ability to project power. And there's a lot of suggestion now that the economic basis on which we can project power is being substantially eroded.

RICE: Senator, of course, the strength of the American economy is an important issue for American power, and therefore an important issue for the secretary of state. I do think that the help that our diplomacy and our foreign policy can give to a strong American economy comes, for instance, through trade and through the efforts that we make to promote free trade and to promote it on a basis in which the playing field is level. The United States is engaged in, through the person who will become my deputy I hope if you confirm him, Bob Zoellick, a very active trade agenda through the Doha Development Agenda, which will improve growth worldwide, but also will improve the American economy because we are believers in free trade. I think that that is one way that we can help.

SARBANES: But the trade balance has worsened markedly. I mean, something's wrong with the set of policies we're pursuing, it seems to me, if we're going to have the kind of erosion in the trade balance that we have seen, particularly in recent

SARBANES: It's a very negative figure. And, of course, every year that that figure is negative, the amount of debt that we owe overseas and our dependence upon others increases.

RICE: Senator, a number of factors that have contributed to that and I do think that the economic team is aware and trying to deal with those factors in the American economy. Where the State Department and our diplomacy can be supportive is really in two ways: first to promote a trade agenda that levels the playing field, that makes certain that the rules of the trading system are followed. For instance, many of the changes economically are coming as the result of a strong and growing China and China's role in the world economy. The need to make certain that China is, in its growing strength in the economy, playing by the rules of the international economy is enhanced by the work that we did to have China accede to the WTO. We now, of course, have to make certain that China is living up to its obligations on the WTO. So we spend a good deal of time, for instance, trying to get the Chinese to react to intellectual property rights issues. Another way that the State Department can help with this very important agenda is to make certain that the markets of others are as open to us as our markets are to them. And that's an activity that I would expect to be involved in as a part of my diplomacy I've been involved in as national security adviser. If we're not to have deformations (ph) in the way that the international economy works, then people can not be protectionist. Those are some of the ways in which I think the diplomacy can support a strong economic policy. And I agree with you completely that a strong economy is very important to our international standing.

RICE: Well, I know, Senator, that the president and his economic team regard it as a serious set of issues that they will be dealing with. The president has talked about the importance of the fundamentals of the American economy, strengthening the American economy, the importance of a strong dollar which continues to be our policy. He's talked about the need for budget discipline, and I think he is working toward a budget that will express that.

SARBANES: Do you consider this a matter for your agenda? After all, it affects American power and the ability to project power. And there's a lot of suggestion now that the economic basis on which we can project power is being substantially eroded.

RICE: Senator, of course, the strength of the American economy is an important issue for American power, and therefore an important issue for the secretary of state. I do think that the help that our diplomacy and our foreign policy can give to a strong American economy comes, for instance, through trade and through the efforts that we make to promote free trade and to promote it on a basis in which the playing field is level. The United States is engaged in, through the person who will become my deputy I hope if you confirm him, Bob Zoellick, a very active trade agenda through the Doha Development Agenda, which will improve growth worldwide, but also will improve the American economy because we are believers in free trade. I think that that is one way that we can help.

SARBANES: But the trade balance has worsened markedly. I mean, something's wrong with the set of policies we're pursuing, it seems to me, if we're going to have the kind of erosion in the trade balance that we have seen, particularly in recent years.

SARBANES: It's a very negative figure. And, of course, every year that that figure is negative, the amount of debt that we owe overseas and our dependence upon others increases.

RICE: Senator, a number of factors that have contributed to that and I do think that the economic team is aware and trying to deal with those factors in the American economy. Where the State Department and our diplomacy can be supportive is really in two ways: first to promote a trade agenda that levels the playing field, that makes certain that the rules of the trading system are followed. For instance, many of the changes economically are coming as the result of a strong and growing China and China's role in the world economy. The need to make certain that China is, in its growing strength in the economy, playing by the rules of the international economy is enhanced by the work that we did to have China accede to the WTO. We now, of course, have to make certain that China is living up to its obligations on the WTO. So we spend a good deal of time, for instance, trying to get the Chinese to react to intellectual property rights issues. Another way that the State Department can help with this very important agenda is to make certain that the markets of others are as open to us as our markets are to them. And that's an activity that I would expect to be involved in as a part of my diplomacy I've been involved in as national security adviser. If we're not to have deformations (ph) in the way that the international economy works, then people can not be protectionist. Those are some of the ways in which I think the diplomacy can support a strong economic policy. And I agree with you completely that a strong economy is very important to our international standing.

RICE: I would note that we are still the fastest growing of the major developed countries of the world, so we have considerable economic strength.

SARBANES?: Our growth is growing in a way, though, that we're becoming increasingly mortgaged to others. China and Japan now are holding tremendous dollar reserves which then, of course, play into the trade relationship much to their advantage.

So that it works in a way we become more dependent, they're able to skew the trade arrangement to their advantage, which makes us more dependent and the vicious circle continues in a downward spiral.

But I see my time has expired. I may revisit this in another round.

Thank you.

LUGAR: Thank you, Senator Sarbanes.

Senator Chafee?

CHAFEE: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Congratulations and welcome, Dr. Rice.

RICE: Thank you.

CHAFEE: Senator Feinstein mentioned how proud your parents, John and Angelena, must be and -- here in spirit would be, rather. And out of curiosity, did your father know Martin Luther King at all?

RICE: He did and he was a minister in Birmingham and they all did. And everyone admired him. We also had a number of friends who worked with him, like Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth, who was a giant in our community.

CHAFEE: Well, Dr. King's one of my heroes.

RICE: Mine too.

CHAFEE: Senator Hagel mentioned the distinguished career of your predecessor, Secretary Powell and I'm curious as to how you might look at the improvements as we go forward or how you -- what would you see as you come in now as the new secretary of state. What improvements might be occurring in the State Department?

RICE: Thank you, Senator.

The goal here is to build on the considerable achievements of Secretary Powell and Deputy Secretary Armitage. I think that it is well recognized that they did a great deal to improve the fundamentals in the State Department.

RICE: And so the efforts that have been made to build new security into the facilities and to revamp our most vulnerable posts will be a very high priority for me. The first meetings that I had were with the undersecretary for management, and I would expect to make that a large part of the agenda.

CHAFEE: Do you see any significant changes ahead?

RICE: Well, there's always need for change because, of course, conditions are different. And I think we have to continually review and update the skills of our diplomatic corps. We're asking our diplomatic corps to do more actively in, for instance, helping transform whole societies, getting in and helping the Iraqis with their currency exchange or getting in and helping the Nigerians root out corruption. These are skills that are of a more active transformational diplomacy and one that probably wasn't really foreseen in the earlier stages of building Foreign Service skills. So I look forward to working with those people, but also with members of this committee who I know have some interest in skills development, to see if we can push that envelope.

CHAFEE: Well, thank you. As chairman of the Middle East Subcommittee on the Foreign Relations Committee, I'm interested in your comments on the Israeli- Palestinian issue. And in your opening statement you talked about, America seeks justice and dignity in a viable independent democratic state for the Palestinian people. Can you expand at all on viable ? What do you see as a viable Palestinian state?

RICE: Well, there are several ways to think about viability. One is that it has to have territory that makes it viable. It cannot be territory that is so broken up that it can't function as a state, and I think that that's now well understood. Has to have economic viability. And there it probably needs to have economic viability in relationship to other states around it: to Jordan, to Israel and to others. And viability also comes from democratic institutions. One of the things that I think we didn't pay enough attention to in the past is the development of democratic institutions in the Palestinian territories.

RICE: At a time when we are promoting the progress of democracy in the Middle East, the Palestinians are a people who should be able to adopt those habits and take them up. They are a talented, in many ways educated population, a population that has tried, even under very limited circumstances, to have some at least pluralism in their politics. And so viability, I think, also has a political or democracy dimension that we need to pay attention to.

CHAFEE: I'm sure that many Palestinian moderates would like to hear more specifics on what might constitute a viable Palestinian state. Are we looking at something, perhaps, along the Geneva Accord lines?

RICE: Well, as the president said when he met with Prime Minister Sharon back in, I think, May, we have to recognize that the parties are going to determine their borders; that it is not for us to prejudge what those borders might be.

There has been a lot of negotiation. I think they will need to look at what has been looked at before. But the June 24th, 2002, speech really focused on some fundamentals to get us to the place that discussions of final status would be successful.

And those fundamentals now seem to be starting to come into place. The new Palestinian leadership -- I think a Palestinian leadership that, at least in word, is devoted to fighting terror. It needs to be in in deed as devoted to fighting terror. An international community that whenever I talk to people, is quite devoted to and taken with the idea of helping the Palestinians to build those democratic institutions, to reconstruct economically in areas which Israel leaves.

We have in Israel a new coalition that was built around the idea that Israel will disengage from the Gaza and from the four settlements in the West Bank.

And we now really -- I'd just like to mention the neighbors. The Arab states have responsibilities here, too. And they can't incite violence against Israel on the one hand and call for peace and a two- state solution on the other. And so, we've got work to do with them.

But as the fundamentals are beginning to come into place, everyone can be certain that it is a very high priority to seize this moment to try and push toward the day when we have interlocutors who can work on the final status issues.

CHAFEE: In the news today some are calling upon the new Palestinian leadership to be more proactive against some of the violence which is occurring within their own ranks. The previous Palestinian leadership did not intend to do that under Yasser Arafat; the danger being that once Palestinians take up arms amongst themselves, you could have Palestinian civil war.

How do you look -- how do we go forward with that dilemma?

RICE: Well, I do believe that Abu Mazen made a good start in what he said, which is that there really is no route to a Palestinian state through violence. And that means that he is appealing, to my mind correctly, to those Palestinians who realize that the use of terror techniques, the use of violence is not going to result in the fulfillment of their national aspirations.

Having said that, the people who insist on violence and insist on terrorism have got to be isolated and ultimately disarmed. The Palestinians are fond of saying there has to be one authority, one gun.

We can help with that, because the restructuring of the Palestinian security forces is something that we have helped with in the past and should now with other neighbors, like Egypt or Jordan, be helping with in the future.

The construction of unified Palestinian security forces that are accountable to the Palestinian leadership and are not, in effect, armed gangs is probably one of our most important tasks. So I don't see it as a matter of civil war, but rather as a matter of the isolation of those who are unwilling to pursue the aspirations of the Palestinian people through peaceful means.

DODD: Let me also join Senator Hagel in -- this is a transformational time, as you talked about, for American foreign policy. We'd be remiss in this committee if we did not express our deep sense of gratitude to Colin Powell and Richard Armitage and the staff they put together. He's been a tremendous public servant and whatever else life holds for him, he deserves our commendation for the job he's done for our nation. So we thank him for that, as well. And I want to thank my colleagues for raising some of the issues they have. Obviously, Iraq is a major foreign policy question and rightfully, would dominate a lot of our conversation here today. As Senator Chafee mentioned, Senator Chafee and Senator Nelson and I just completed an eight-day trip to Latin America visiting Venezuela, Paraguay, Argentina, Peru and Ecuador coming back. And I want to focus some attention on that in this first round. There are other questions I have. There are roughly 600 million people in this hemisphere, excluding ourselves, who look to the United States for leadership. Two of our most important trading partners, Mexico and Canada, of course, in this hemisphere. The issues that Senator Sarbanes has raised about economic policy are absolutely on target and one that we pay -- should be paying much more attention to in my view. Because as we found over the last eight days traveling in South America, these issues are the ones they care the most about in many ways. And they're the ones the absence (ph) of our attention to these questions over the last number of years, for reasons they understand. Certainly the 9/11 diverted our attention elsewhere, the events of the Middle East have certainly dominated our attention. But I want you to know at least my observations over the last week or so is we're in trouble in this hemisphere, Dr. Rice. We're in deep trouble in this hemisphere. Others may know other parts of the world well and certainly there've been great changes in China and India, Russia, the Middle East, certainly in Africa, but we need to get back on track in this hemisphere. And I'm going to ask you a broader question about what direction we're going to take here. Let me tell you just briefly some of the things that we found over the last seven or eight days. And my colleagues, Senator Nelson, Senator Chafee can add or detract from these conclusions. We found these governments facing major demands from their citizens with inadequate resources to meet those demands. In fact, the budget indications coming out of the administration are significantly going to provide significantly less resources in terms of aid to this part of the world, and has been the case in previous years. You mentioned the important years of 1947, '48, '49 and thereafter in terms of our efforts to grapple with the great challenge of the second half of the 20th century. Certainly one of the great speeches given to set the tone for that was Harry Truman's only inaugural address, in which point four, which set up the U.S. aid missions that made a huge difference in the 1950s and '60s. The alliance for progress that Senator Kennedy initiated, these ideas had strong economic components to them as we grappled with the great challenges facing choices in those days between what the Soviet Union offered and what we offered.

DODD: So we found great demands on the part of the citizens of these countries. We found government institutions that had been weakened and co- opted by unsolved internal political disputes. We found government officials interested in concluding bilateral free trade agreements, not only because it would improve access to our markets, but because they know it can be a means of institutionalizing reforms that'll mean more jobs and incomes to their citizens. We found government leaders concerned about the decline in U.S. resources available to assist them (inaudible) fight against narcoterrorists, terrorists ready to take advantage of the lawlessness created by the systemic corruption that exists generally throughout the region, and especially in the tri-border area of Paraguay and Brazil and Argentina where Muslim organizations are reportedly raising and laundering monies to support their international ambitions. We found government leaders frustrated by the suspension of U.S. military assistance and training to their military services because of our fixation with the International Criminal Court (inaudible) American Servicemen's Protection Act which links continued assistance in these areas (inaudible) signing of the so-called Article 98 agreement, the United States. And I heard this from American military personnel, Dr. Rice, not from foreigners but our own personnel worried that we're placing so much emphasis on that point, we're stopping the training so necessary to build the relationships in this century to people in that part of the world. We found government leaders desirous of positive relationships with the United States and disappointed that our government hasn't made relations with them a higher national priority. Even President Chavez expressed an interest in improved relations with the United States, putting aside the obvious issue that's going on over the last several days, it's going to be critically important that we try and do something new with Venezuela than the continued policies of isolation, in my view. So I'd like to get from you, if I could, as these opening comments: Are we going to have a new direction here in this critical part of the world? Senator Hagel mentioned immigration. No other issue. Vicente Fox, the one issue that he was hoping he'd get some resolution from over the last four years was on immigration, and nothing was done.

DODD: One speech that I'm aware of, no legislation introduced, no effort up here to make a difference -- it's a crippling economic problem here at home. And it's sort of -- continuing contention between one of our very, very important allies around the globe and the closest neighbor to us with some of the most important issues. What are we going to do about that, and are we going to change some direction here, or are we going to stick with the policies of the past that are creating some serious, serious problems in this part of the world?

RICE: Thank you, Senator Dodd, and thank you also for the time that you did spend -- and I look forward to talking to you more about the future of Latin America. The Western Hemisphere is obviously extremely critical to our agenda. Let me start with Mexico and Canada, because the relationship with our closes neighbors -- a good policy begins with the relationship with your closest neighbors. I do think we've made a lot of progress with Mexico and Canada on a number of issues, for instance, on the smart border initiative which has helped us to solidify and codify our homeland security concerns. It was something that we needed to do in the face of 9/11 and the terrorist threats and the relationships that our homeland security secretaries have been able to forge, so that we get to a position where the borders are allowing in commerce but not allowing in those who might harm us. And that was very important, because I remember in the very first days after September 11th that some of our efforts to secure the border were actually very quickly going to prevent commerce. And so we needed to find the right balance. And we've made a lot of progress in terms of the use of technology and those smart border initiatives will continue. We also, with our Mexican and Canadian counterparts, are talking a lot about what the next steps are in our NAFTA relationship. Because as -- and Senator Sarbanes talked about some of the economic difficulties the United States may face, or some of the difficulties we may face if we should have problems in our economy. We, also, face a lot of competition around the world. And as we have watched Europe and the European Union integrate its economic policies, I think it has raised questions about what the future can look like for NAFTA and for the NAFTA states to extend those relationships.

RICE: And we've had discussions about what the next phases are. And I think that is a way forward. And I would look forward to having extensive discussions about how we improve the competitiveness of Northern (ph) America as we face competition from the rest of the world. We also have been very active in Central America. And I would agree with you, there are very grave challenges now to some of these regimes. And we don't want to repeat what has tended to be a cycle in Latin America of democratic developments followed by authoritarian ones. And I don't think that we have to. In Central America and in Latin America, we have to recognize that while there are in many of these places growth rates that are very, very high for these regions, that the ability for these countries to actually deal with the problems and demands of their people are -- that's really the next step. And we had, at Monterrey, a number of discussions about developing the human potential of these countries, worrying about education, and worrying about literacy, and worrying about economic opportunity for people. These are, in many ways, very highly stratified societies. And we need, in the United States, to associate ourselves, I think, with the struggle of those who are trying to overcome that stratification. We can't just associate ourselves with an old order. We have to be concerned about the indigenous peoples that are trying to find their rightful place in a political and economic system. Our own history should tell us that that's an extremely important task ahead. So it is a very big agenda to do what the president has been trying to do, which is to promote democratic development and democratic institutions, to begin to marry those democratic institutions with economic progress for the peoples of the region. Certainly one of the ways that we can contribute to the twin progress of democracy and economic development is through trade. And we have had a number of successful free trade agreements. We had the free trade agreement with Chile. You in the Senate will be contemplating at some point a free trade agreement, the CAFTA agreement. We continue to work with Brazil as our co-chair, to try and push forward on the Free Trade of the Americas agreement. So trade is a big part of this agenda. If I might just take one other moment to say that we also are trying to work relationships, key relationships, in this region in a very aggressive way. I would focus, for just a moment, on the relationship with Brazil, which I think is extremely critical to the region. There are others as well, but the president and President Lula have met on a couple of occasions. We had in the earliest stage a meeting of both Cabinets to try and have an agenda going forward. Because if we think about the real challenges -- those are economic, social mobility, education and literacy for people -- and how that can be done within democratic institutions, so that the challenges don't have to come from outside of democratic institutions, we need partners in that. Brazil is such a partner, but so are others. And I would hope to really spend some time with the Organization of American States making certain that the agenda of promoting democratic development, holding accountable leaders who do not govern democratically, even if they are democratically elected, that that would be an agenda we could mobilize around.

DODD: Well, I thank you for your broad answer. My time is up here. Let me -- just a couple of points. One, this underscores the point Senator Sarbanes was making, in my view, that I, too, was a bit disappointed reading your opening statements about the paucity of comments about economics and the importance of the issue. You've highlight it exactly and you're correct, this is part of the issue. But I think it's critically important that we pursue these issues without expressing yet until we see them these final agreements on these trade agreements. But I would hope, and if you want to quickly answer, are we going to have these trade agreements up here to shoulder (ph)? You and I both know that if you wait, even good trade agreements, if coming up at the wrong time up here, the circumstances can fail. And if they fail, I think the implications could be serious to the region. So, quickly, are we going to see CAFTA and the D.R. trade agreement coming up, the Andean agreement which they're working on right now? Are we going to see those sooner rather than later as an administration priority?

RICE: Well, we will certainly work with the Congress on this, but we, obviously, would like to see these agreements sooner rather than later.

DODD: And let me just comment briefly. I think Senator Chafee, Nelson and I would tell you, as well, we were very impressed, Mr. Chairman, with the competency and quality of the State Department personnel we ran into in these countries. I would hope, as you're making choices about the senior positions -- there's some wonderfully talented, knowledgeable people about this part of the world. And my hope would be that you put a team together that would reflect the very things you're suggesting in response to my questions. Because I think you will agree with me: For reasons we may understand, we really have to pay more attention to this part of the world.

RICE: Thank you. Senator, may I just have one moment? You mentioned Venezuela and I'd like to just address that quickly, if I may. We have a long and good history with Venezuela, long ties. I think it's extremely unfortunate that the Chavez government has not been constructive. And we do have to be vigilant and to demonstrate that we know the difficulties that that government is causing for its neighbors, its close association with Fidel Castro in Cuba -- still the only empty chair at the OAS is that of Cuba because it's not a democratically elected government. And those relationships are deeply concerning to us and to me. And we are very concerned about a democratically elected leader who governs in an illiberal way. And some of the steps that have been taken against the media, against opposition I think are really very deeply troubling. And we are going to have to, as a hemisphere that signed a democracy charter, be devoted to making sure that those who signed that charter live up to it.

DODD: Well, I appreciate you saying that. But it's a two-way street, Dr. Rice. It requires we work on it as well. It's not the 1960s or '70s and there are people down there -- you mentioned President Lula. I can go back and show you a statement that President Lula made that would compete with anything President Chavez has said. Yet we found a way to work with this new president. My strong suggestion is find ways to do this. Going back and repeating these statements over and over again only dig the hole deeper and deeper. And that's an important relationship. It's important in the hemisphere. We need to work at it. My hope is you will. Thank you. LUGAR: Thank you very much, Senator Dodd. I congratulate you and Senator Chafee and Senator Nelson on the trip. I know Senator Coleman has been very active in the area, too. And I would underline your request that we really have people in the department who are on top of the situation. I think Senator Dodd makes a good point. A group of people really interested in the area, in forwarding these difficult situations. Let me call now on Senator Allen.

ALLEN: Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank all the members preceding me for their questions. And, Dr. Rice, I thoroughly enjoyed listening to your statement and your very positive life story. Four years ago, as a rookie senator I was introducing Secretary Powell -- or General Powell -- to this committee, a genuine American hero. And your personal life story and his, although in different backgrounds, certainly are an inspiration, and I think very helpful for us as we, as a country, try to advance freedom for people all over the world.

And I do think that, when you talk about your life's story and bringing up Birmingham -- I would encourage some of my colleagues there's a civil rights pilgrimage every year. Last year I went on it. Senator Coleman was there and Senator DeWine, a few others.

And this year, Senator Corzine on the Democrat side, me on the Republican side, will be heading a delegation there for the 40th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act.

And you go to Birmingham, that church that was bombed, I know that you are a member of, as well as Montgomery and Selma. And I found it a very moving, profoundly impacting and very meaningful event for me.

And a lot of those -- now, Dr. King obviously is gone, but many of those who were involved in the civil rights movement are actually still alive and you can talk and question them on what they were trying to do.

Dr. Rice, you mentioned the future, which is important. And some people call the 20th century America's century. I believe, as you do, that the 21st century needs to be freedom's century.

And individual freedom, regardless of race or gender or ethnicity or religion are key. I look at those as some of the four pillars of freedom or individual liberty are freedom of religion, freedom of speech. You used the town hall test. Three is private ownership of property, and fourth, the rule of law to protect those rights and constitutional rule.

And we do learn from history. And that's why I like reading and listening to your statement. And you referenced President Truman and Acheson and so forth and 1947 to 1949. And that is fine; that was the beginning of the Cold War.

I will say, though, that President Ronald Reagan and George Shultz and Cap Weinberger and that administration were the ones who changed that dynamic of the Cold War from one of containment and co- existence to the advancement of freedom.

Some criticized President Reagan for calling the Soviet Union, in my view, rightfully, the Evil Empire. They criticized him for going to Brandenburg Gate and telling Mr. Gorbachev to tear down that wall. But that's actually what did happen.

Because of that, there are now hundreds of millions of people tasting that sweet nectar of liberty in Central Europe who are friends and allies, not just in the war on terror but also economically, thanks to that leadership.

One of the things that was key in those years was Voice of America and Radio Free Europe. Presently there's still Radio and TV Marti insofar as Cuba is concerned.

One of the concerns that I have presently insofar as the Arab world, and more particularly Iraq, is we may grouse about what TV stations people may watch or what radio they may listen to. There are so many satellite dishes that you see in Iraq.

I would like to get your views -- and Senator Biden brought this up in his opening statement, just a glancing blow of it -- but what is your view of what we can do with the Board of Broadcasting Governors to find a way, not propaganda, not music, but just facts about the United States, our motivation or just the concepts of freedom, so that the people of Iraq and others in the Arab world have a fair and balanced view of the United States and our purposes and the concepts of individual liberty?

ALLEN: And we actually don't have the same problems we have with jamming, say, to Cuba or the former Soviet Union, in that regard. Now, when you talk about students, let me go to the second issue, and that has to do with visas. And you mentioned in your remarks, America must remain open to visitors, workers and students from around the world. And I hear from business leaders, from those in research and the scholarly or the collegial, in the literal sense, community how difficult if is for people to get visas. Clearly, after 9/11 we do need to have better information. The consulates all have to have the information the defense intelligence has and the CIA so that visas are not granted to people who should never be allowed into this country. However, in between there -- of completely shutting it down and with the long delays, versus no scrutiny whatsoever, in my view, are ways that we can be utilizing technology. Your predecessor, Secretary Powell, has done a great job in upgrading the technology, so at least they can e-mail back here and within some of the embassies. The technologies on visas, whether it's a variety of biometrics, need to be implemented. We need to show the lead here in this country, clearly harmonizing, particularly with Europe and certain Asian countries, where we do have a lot of visitors, whether they are for tourism, whether it's for business, whether it's research or for our universities. Can you share with me and our committee what you envision of utilizing better biometrics and ensuring security, while also stopping this or reducing the lengthy inhibiting time involved in acquiring a visa, for somebody who is a safe traveler to come to this country?

RICE: Well, obviously, after September 11th, we had to worry about who was inside the borders. And I think we took a number of steps that were important and long overdue. But it is also important to remain open. Now, the State Department, should I be confirmed, under my leadership, would be resolute and attentive to the security issues. And the kind of policies about biometric passports and biometric identification, I want to look at where we are on that issue and to make sure that we can get the standard in place so that when we require others to have it in place that we have been in the lead.

It's obviously the case that you can't ask others to do what you won't do. And so I will pay a lot of attention to that and spend some time understanding whatever impediments there are to getting that done. As to the visa policies themselves and the slowness, I would very much like to have the time and also the counsel of this committee, because I think it's the one issue that came up when I talked to almost every member of this committee, to see what we can do to improve this situation. It's partly -- a lot has been done. And Secretary Powell and Secretary Ridge worked very hard on it. They made available some information sharing between various agencies that has made it quicker. We put a lot of stress and pressure on our consular people in this process, and I appreciate their good works. But there is clearly and certainly more that we can do. And I look forward to working with Judge Chertoff, if he's confirmed, to see what we can do to give a sense of greater openness to people who want to come here, not to harm us, but to be a part of this great experience that is America. I am a big proponent of, particularly, student exchanges, having been myself in a place that had a lot of foreign students. It's the best policy that we can have. Universities will have to play their part in helping us to make sure that the policies that they are carrying out help with the security. But this is something that I'm going to pay a lot of attention to, Senator.

ALLEN: Thank you, Dr. Rice. I look forward to working with you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

LUGAR: Thank you very much, Senator Allen. Senator Kerry, as you -- before you came in this morning, Senator Biden paid tribute to your service on the committee, and let me join him.

LUGAR: We're proud that a member of our committee was a candidate for president of the United States. And we're delighted that you are here today. And we recognize you for your questions. BIDEN: Mr. Chairman, if I may interrupt, I indicated to Senator Kerry I am very disappointed that he's back. (LAUGHTER) But I'm happy to see him.

KERRY: Well, Mr. Chairman, I wish we could have translated your pride into some votes, but thank you anyway. But I respect the pride and I love your friendship. And I thank you for it very, very much. And to my friend, Joe, the ranking member, I want to thank him also for his comments. I actually heard them back in the office. And I wanted to thank you personally, both of you. I guess it's, sort of, good to be back.

(LAUGHTER)

Dr. Rice, welcome. Welcome to the world of oaths and testimony and congressional accountability, which I tried so hard to distance myself from for a while.

(LAUGHTER)

I admire enormously your personal story. I admire the road you've traveled. I admire your relationship with the president, which is obviously special. And he certainly has the right and prerogative, as we all know, as president to make choices.

You are going to be confirmed and everybody knows that. But without anything personal at all, whether or not it is with my vote is yet to be determined.

I have reservations and they are not personal in any way whatsoever, but they do go to the story and trail of the last four years.

And I even listened closely to your answer to Senator Biden a few moments ago about troops and the numbers. And, frankly, your answer disturbed me.

Despite Paul Bremer saying he thought they needed more troops, despite General Shinseki talking about more troops, despite the acknowledged mistake by so many people -- certainly all the leaders I met with in the region in recent days -- about the disbanding of the military, the de-Baathification that went as deep as it did, despite the failure to guard ammo dumps, the weapons of which are now being turned on our troops, despite the failure to guard nuclear facilities, when after all the purpose of the invasion was to deal with weapons of mass destruction, despite the inability to deliver services immediately, despite the security level that we have today, you sat there this morning and suggested it was the right number of troops, contrary to the advice of most thoughtful people who have been analyzing this.

KERRY: The chairman of this committee at one point said that he thought the administration's efforts with respect to the delivery of aid, et cetera, was embarrassing. The ranking member on their side, Senator Hagel, thought it was both pitiful and even reached a zone of dangerous. So there's, sort of, this hanging in there to the status quo, which is worrisome.

And then afterwards you said, Well, there were unforeseen consequences, unforeseen events, because the army melted into the countryside.

Well, that wasn't unforeseen. That's exactly what they did in '91. And we, in fact, encouraged them to do it. Because we leafleted and broadcast and told them that if they disbanded, we would pay them, and they would not suffer any consequences for putting down their arms and going home and getting out of uniform. So we told them to do that.

But we didn't pay them. We went back on that promise. And they got angry and organized.

Now, having just come back from there -- haven't been as many times as Joe -- but in Fallujah and Kirkuk, Mosul, I talked with Iraqis who are trying to make this work, who are desperate about the lack of support from Baghdad, the lack of resources coming. They almost feel forgotten by Baghdad.

And it seems to me that if the administration is going to, you know, we went in to rescue Iraq from Saddam Hussein. Now I think we have to rescue our policy from ourselves.

And what I learned from every single leader over there -- and, you know, I don't come back with any joy in this, but it's sort of the reality we've got to deal with.

We've got kids who are dying over there. They're going on missions that, in my judgment, are questionable in what they're going to achieve in terms of the population and the overall goal. I hope General Luck comes back with judgments about that.

Our troops are stunning, superb. You know that, I know that, the president knows that, every American knows that. But they deserve and want a policy -- they ask questions, you know, how are we going to do this, how are we going to get out of here, how are we going to take care of this business?

And what I came away from was an unbelievable sense of willingness of the community at large, European leaders, Arab leaders, to do more, to be able to be more a part of this.

My question to you is several-fold. And there are a lot of questions I want to ask in a number of areas, obviously, North Korea, proliferation, the Middle East, a whole host of things. But all we'll have time for in these rounds is probably this first initial effort.

Every Arab leader I asked, do you want Iraq to fail, says no. Do you think you will be served if there's a civil war? They say no. Do you believe that failure is a threat to the region and to the stability of the world? Yes; same with the European leaders. But each of them feel that they have offered more assistance, more effort to be involved, want to be part of a playing field that's more cooperative, and yet they feel rebuffed.This was never going to be easy. It was always going to have ups and downs. I'm sure that we have made many decisions, some of which were good, some of which might not have been good, but the strategic decision to overthrow Saddam Hussein was the right one.

And we're all going to be very glad that we no longer have to deal with a bloody dictator in the middle of the world's most dangerous region who was an avowed enemy of the United States. I would rather trade the considerable difficulty of helping the Iraqi people get to a democratic future and a future in which they will be allies in the war on terror for what was yet again a chance or a policy that thought that we could buy stability even if there was a regime of the tremendous brutality of Saddam Hussein's in place in the Middle East. So I think we made the right decision to overthrow him. Having made that strategic decision, you're right. We do have some big tactical challenges to get to the strategic goal that we have. After the election -- and I do think the election is an important event. It's a next step on the Iraqi people's road to a better future. It is not the final step. It's a step that will allow them to elect leaders who will then begin the political process of trying to deal with the many divisions, historic and other divisions, that the Iraqi people themselves have. And they're going to have to make political compromises to do it. They're going to have to find their own way politically and we will be there to support them. That is, perhaps, the most important set of steps that have to take place after this election. Our role, as you rightly say, is to focus on what we can do to help them build capacity in their security forces and in their economy. And in their security forces, again, I -- we can talk about what was foreseeable or what was not. The people who are fighting now -- yes, some of them are frustrated young people and we need to do, and Prime Minister Allawi is doing what he can to siphon those people off and to give them a stake in the future of Iraq. And he's doing it. We will help him with jobs programs. I think we do, as one adjustment, need to pay more attention to what jobs we are creating for Iraqis out of the reconstruction dollars that we are spending. And that's one issue that I've asked to have looked at a little bit more closely, if the metric is how many jobs are we creating, how are we really creating jobs for the Iraqis. But many of the people who are blowing up their fellow citizens, are blowing up Iraqis, are not actually people who were angry because they weren't paid. They are people who were part of Saddam Hussein's regime. They were Baathists at the high level of Baathism, not people who joined the party because they had to to get a job, but people who enjoyed the benefits and the fruits of Saddam Hussein's regime and people who spent their lives oppressing their fellow citizens. They've lost power and they want it back. And so we have to be clear who the enemy is here. Others are foreign terrorists, like Zarqawi, the face of terrorism, who frankly do see Iraq as the central front in the war on terror. And they were committing terrorist acts some place. They weren't sitting and drinking tea some place. They were fighters, hard-core fighters in the war on terrorism. Now they've decided to fight in Iraq.

KERRY: Can I just interrupt you for a minute?

RICE: Yes.

KERRY: I understand that. I mean, you're describing for me the different groups of terrorists. I know who they are. Some of them are criminals. Some are jihadists. Some of them are the former Baathists. Some are them are Zarqawi. We understand that. The question I asked you is: What are you going to do -- why have we rebuffed the efforts of others to be involved, Russians, Indians offered peacekeepers -- others involved? The U.N. offered at a point in time. There have been a series of offers here and we keep, sort of, making this decision to go it alone. And there's a frustration out there in the global leadership that's sort of wondering, you know, whether we're going to change that dynamic and bring them to the table in a legitimate way.

RICE: But, Senator, the only reason that I rehearsed who we're fighting is that there was the notion somehow that these were people who were made angry by our policies.

KERRY: Well, some were.

RICE: I think most of them were made angry by the fact that Saddam Hussein was overthrown. But, you're right, there are people we need to respond to who need jobs and the like. As to international help, I would note we do have an international coalition. We have 27 countries on the ground with us, soon to be 28. Yes, some of the contributions are small, but for small countries they are significant contributions. We have contributions from places like Japan and South Korea that one would not expect -- Asian allies who are serving in Iraq, and we need to honor those contributions. Senator, I'll check, but frankly I'm not aware of Russian offers of peacekeeper support... KERRY: Indian peacekeepers.

RICE: ... in Iraq. As a matter of fact, quite the opposite, that there don't seem to be people who are willing to put forces on the grounded.

KERRY: They offered training and...

RICE: There are people who in differing ways are offering training. For instance, we've taken up and have been using for some time the German efforts at training in the UAE for police forces. The Egyptians have trained some people. We'll look at what more they could do.

KERRY: The Germans say they could do more.

RICE: And we will -- if they want to do more, they only have to say they can do more and I can guarantee you, we will want them to do more.

One of the things that I will do going forward is, after this election is over, we have a chance now to, as an international community, support a new elected Iraqi government. And it may be a time that we can enhance the contributions of some members of the international community, but it is not for lack of trying that we have not been able to get forces on the ground from some of these countries.

KERRY: My time is up. I want to -- we're not really finished with it in a sense. But let me say to you very quickly, that as you make a judgment about this, I think all of my colleagues would report to you and I think you'll hear it from generals and others, the current policy is growing the insurgency, not diminishing it.

And you need to think, as -- I'm still going to try to see if we can be more precise about what you intend to do to change this dynamic and effect the political reconciliation necessary.

There are many people who believe that Kirkuk, for instance, may explode because of the Kurd issue after the election, because of what happened in their efforts to move people in, and they were denied the effort.

And so the dynamics of the election could actually, without the proper actions, provide a greater capacity for civil war than there is today, absent the right steps.

RICE: Senator, I think that the elections, the Iraqis understand the opportunity that the elections will give them to address some of the divisions that you are talking about.

There is no doubt that Iraq is a country that has deep divisions and it is a country where Saddam Hussein exploited those divisions, for instance, with the policy of Arabization in Kirkuk.

And so they have a long and hard road ahead to effect national reconciliation.

But I've been, frankly, quite heartened by the fact that the Shia, whenever there's an attack against them by Zarqawi and his people or by the insurgents, don't take to the barricades. What they say is, this is going to be a unified Iraq, and we're not going to fall to sectarian violence.

So I think we need to give them a chance here. You know, the political process, as you well know and you all know better than I, is one of coming to terms with divisions, coming to terms with institutions that mitigate against people's sense of alienation. It takes time. It takes effort. Sometimes the compromises are a bit imperfect at first. But over time, it gets better.

You know, we've had our own history with this. I often say, and I don't mean it jokingly, that so far I have not seen the Iraqis, or for that matter, the Afghans, make a compromise as bad as the one in 1789 that declared my ancestors to be three-fifths of a man.

So we need to be patient with people as they make these moves to democracy, understand that it will be in small steps, that they will have ups and downs, that the whole process will have ups and downs.

But as long as they're on a strategic road that is getting them to a government that can actually represent the aspirations of the Iraqi people as a whole, I think they've got a chance.

The insurgency wants very much to halt that process and throw Iraq back. We have to provide the Iraqis with the tools through training, through capacity building, to defeat that insurgency with our help, and that's what we're trying to do.

And that was heartening. And he's got to follow through now. We have to hold him to those commitments. But we saw that. And then in Brussels, with the E.U., with the secretary general, de Scheffer, and European Union President Barroso, they talk about a new wind blowing, a new moment of opportunity. So I hope, Dr. Rice, and I'm sure you recognize, there is this moment of opportunity, for whatever reason. The president's going to be there four more years. But there is a -- what happened in Afghanistan with the election I think is very important. I don't think we reflect on it enough. And the sense I got from our allies is not that they're being rebuffed, but a little hesitancy. But now they're ready to come forward and we have to then seize the moment. The challenge in two areas that I think are critical, one -- and Senator Dodd raised it -- in Latin America. I'm deeply concerned that we've had 20 years of democracy that I think threatens to be undermined by economic promises that aren't fulfilled. And I think we need to be focused on that region. And in the second round of questions I think I'll specifically ask about Colombia and talk about that. So I think there is a great challenge. And the other is Russia. Deep concerns about -- I think in your comments you talked about an uneven path -- path to democracy uneven. I would agree with Senator Biden that what we're seeing is a -- we're seeing a slippage, we're seeing a reversal of course. We're seeing a regression on the part of the Russians. And as the president prepares to meet with Putin, I just -- I hope we continue to press these issues. In fact, I'll raise a micro issue and the micro issue has to do with some religious documents important to the Jewish community, the Schneerson documents important to the Chabad-Lubavitch community. I marched for the issue of freedom for Soviet Jewry in the 1980s here in Washington.

And we still face those issues, and my concern is as we look to develop our relationship with the Russians that we continue to press them on the religious freedom issues -- these documents in particular -- (inaudible) that we continue to have deep concerns, deep concerns as to what I see as a regression. So I just want to make that statement, and I hope that you would kind of push on those; the little things sometimes become big things.

RICE: Thank you. And we will very much push on those issues and issues of the Schneerson documents, but also religious freedom. I think you're very right. We need to pay attention in Russia to what is happening to individual rights since (ph) as well as religious freedom.

COLEMAN: Let me raise, then, in this round, just one other issue. Obviously my subcommittee is involved in the investigation of oil-for-food. We just had release of documents. By the way, I want to thank the State Department. I know within the budget committees of the U.N. they pushed to have member states have access to these reports, and as a result, we got them a lot quicker and because of that kind of support and that kind of focus. I have a question about -- these most recent documents highlight a lot of mismanagement, serious mismanagement. We fund 22 percent of the U.N.'s operating budget. We had a terrible environmental crisis in which, by the way, we responded to very, very well, the Indians responded to well. I worry about the ability of the U.N. to be able to respond credibly when we've got this stain of mismanagement. And I would, and again I think we're just seeing the tip of it right now. Our investigation will go on, but these audits demonstrate severe mismanagement of resources that are simply not tolerable when the concerns and the needs that we have. Can you reflect a little bit on the oil-for-food impact on U.N. credibility and how do we move forward?

RICE: Yes, absolutely. I would agree with you that it is -- I'll use the word scandal. I think it is a scandal what happened with oil-for-food.

And it is extremely unfortunate, because it -- not only did it allow Saddam Hussein to continue to get resources, it was very hard on the Iraqi people, so we had the worst of both circumstances.

It was also the process that we were relying on, of course, to keep Saddam Hussein contained and checked.

And, clearly, we weren't doing that. The sanctions were breaking down. He was playing the international community like a violin.

And we can't let that happen again, should we ever get into position where we have to do something in terms of sanctions. It's just outrageous.

Now, I hope that the Volcker commission will get all of this -- the cooperation that they need from the U.N. to continue their process.

And we have worked -- and I appreciate hearing that things have gotten better for the congressional committees here, because we really do expect openness and transparency and information flow from the United Nations.

I know we've made State Department people who would have knowledge available to talk with people here.

We've opened up the Iraq Survey Group's files, in effect, to people.

We've got to get to the bottom of what happened here. And those who were responsible, I think, should be held accountable.

I will note that some changes are being made at the U.N. in terms of the structure of the staffing there, that more changes have been recommended as a part of the high-level panel.

And the United States has to stay active in the U.N. reform process. because we want the U.N. to be effective. We don't want it to be an ineffective organization. We have too much work to do together. And it has to be effective, and it has to be admired for its integrity in its programs. And so this will be an important agenda for us.

And if I could just go back to the point that you made earlier, Senator Coleman, which is about the moment of opportunity.

It's very easy in the day-to-day to lose sight of some of the things that you mentioned. I do think that if you had sat here 2 1/2 years ago trying to talk about the situation in Afghanistan, you might have wondered at the sanity of someone who said that there was going to be an election with a president elected who was running on a platform that he is pro-American, who would have dealt pretty effectively now with the warlords around him, who is moving toward women's rights and the likes, I think we would have thought that farfetched.

Similarly, if you'd sat here three and a half years ago and said that Pakistan was going to turn its guns on extremism rather than supporting the extremists in places (ph) like Al Qaida and the Taliban, you would have again said that this is farfetched.

So we have to remember that these are historical processes.

And I want to just go back to Iraq for a moment.

This is a huge historical change that is going on in the center of the Arab world, and it has great promise and it has great peril. And we are aware of both.

But we shouldn't lose sight of the promise of Prime Minister Allawi and the leaders, including the Shia leaders, reaching out to Sunnis and saying, You are going to have a place in this government. Yes, you're only 20 percent of the population, and yes the Shia, who are now 60 percent of the population, have been repressed, as have the Kurds, but that doesn't matter. We're going to have a common Iraqi future.

And my read is that the reason that Sunnis are nervous about this election is not that they want to boycott the elections because they think they're somehow just a shill for Sunni -- for Shia dominance, but rather because there is widespread intimidation by these thugs against the Sunni people. We have to recognize what the motivation is here.

The Sunnis want to participate in these elections, but there are people who are engaging in the most brutal intimidation. And so the Iraqis, I think, will find a way to, after the elections, unify their country again, and we have to be there to help them. But from the historical perspective of 30,000 feet, it's sometimes important to see the long sweep, not the short term.

COLEMAN; And we heard that from our bipartisan visit just last week. If I can, Mr. Chairman, I would like to enter into the record a commentary by Paul Bremer that was in the Wall Street Journal on January 12th. Dr. Rice has answered the concern raised by Senator Kerry. But Bremer did note in this article (inaudible) in July 2003 we began paying a monthly stipend to all but the most senior or former officers. These payments continue to this day. So if any former army officers involved in the insurgency does not (ph) for money, their objective is simply to retake power and to return Iraq to its horrible past. So I would like that to be part of the record.

(CROSSTALK)

LUGAR: Thank you. It will be made a part of the record.

RICE: Thank you.

LUGAR: Thank you, Senator Coleman.

Senator Feingold?

FEINGOLD: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Let me join the other members of this committee in congratulating you, Dr. Rice, on your nomination.

I've always enjoyed our conversations and work together.

It's long been apparent that the president has tremendous confidence in you. And his choice to nominate you to be the secretary of state, at a time when the United States faces so many profound challenges and so much global distrust, is still more evidence of his deep and abiding trust in you. Dr. Rice, obviously you and I disagree on many issues. I actually think that the Bush administration's foreign policy, over the last four years, has been on many fronts misguided and self-defeating. And I will continue to oppose these policies. Nothing is more important to this country than prevailing in the fight against terrorism. In that effort and the related effort to repair our country's image and create a more stable and just and prosperous world for our children to inherit, we have to make sure our policies are effective and well thought out. I just returned two days ago from a trip to Algeria, Chad and Mali. And after that I'm even more convinced than before that we need to make a much more substantial commitment to ensuring that the vast youthful populations of the Middle East and Asia and Africa do not mistakenly believe that our goal is to humiliate them, and therefore to believe that their best hope might be a movement that many seem to promise pride and belonging, but actually delivers hatred and repression and brutality and terror. So, Dr. Rice, where we do agree I hope to be a strong and active ally of yours. We have to make the right policies work. Just as an aside, I note that, in response to Senator Coleman's questions, you talked about the need for accountability of the U.N. for the oil-for-food program -- and I agree with that. But just have to know, shouldn't the demand for accountability also apply to this administration for the long litany of mistakes and misstatements about Iraq? There hasn't been serious accountability for that. So I'm not going to hesitate to point out mistakes or raise questions. The stakes are too high. And I'd like to begin by continuing an exchange you had with Senator Kerry. You indicated that if there are countries willing to do more to help us stabilize Iraq, quote, All they have to do is say they want to do more. I think this comment troubles me. Americans are dying, and our approach to burden-sharing is to wait for others to come to us? I'd like to hear a little bit about what your strategy will be to proactively reach out, to squeeze every drop of assistance from others that is available. That will be your job.

FEINGOLD: You just can't sit and wait for others to raise their hands and volunteer. I wonder if you could comment on that.

RICE: Of course.

And, Senator, let me be very, clear about this: We have been reaching out to others and asking them what they can do to stabilize Iraq. It is a constant preoccupation of Secretary Powell, who has talked to every counterpart that he has about what might be possible. It is something that the president has raised in his many meetings with people.

It is something that we took to NATO and that's how we got the NATO training mission, talking to people about what NATO can do. We mobilized the world to -- the G-7 to give debt forgiveness to Iraq, which will save that country a lot of resources and make it possible for it to recover.

I know in my personal conversations around the world, I always ask the question. I start with the premise that we all want to see a stable and democratizing Iraq. I then go on to say that I understand that we've had differences in the past, but that now we all have a common future in looking to a stable and democratizing Iraq. And then the very next question is, So what can you do to help?

And this has been a preoccupation of reaching out.

My only point was that we will have another opportunity when the elections are held, elections that will come out of a process that the U.N. blessed in a U.N. Security Council resolution. And that countries that may have had hesitancy, for whatever reason, I hope that they will really step up.

We had a very successful donor conference, for instance, in which countries made very large financial pledges to this effort. So we are getting help. I think we can get more. Perhaps more countries will be active after the elections.

I would just note on the matter of the region, there have been a couple of very important meetings of regional leaders. One that took place with the G-8 and with the E.U., the G-8 and regional leaders there, to pledge support to Iraqi democracy. There was a recent meeting that King Abdullah of Jordan held, which was a meeting that was to actively ask people to participate in the elections.

I think the world is coming together behind the idea that we have to succeed in Iraq and we have to succeed by building a more democratic Iraq. And we'll welcome all of the help.

But I didn't mean to leave the impression that we're not reaching out. We're consistently and constantly reaching out.

FEINGOLD: I thank you for that.

My sense is that we've not reached out as often and as well as we could. But I wish you well in an aggressive approach to this.

I don't think anything would mean more to the American people, and particularly the families of our soldiers, to know that we're doing everything we can possibly do to get the help from other countries that we can.

Dr. Rice, I've reflected a lot of times on the memo that Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld issued in October 2003 which indicated that, despite over two years having passed since September 11th, quote, relatively little effort had gone into developing a long-range plan to win the fight against terrorism. He pointed out that there's no consensus within the national security community of the United States about how to even measure success in the fight.

And I think the secretary of defense was quite right. And I don't see any particular evidence that this problem has been remedied. In fact, if you just listen to the discussion here at this three-hour- some hearing today, there's been actually not a whole lot of discussion about the fight against terror, unless you believe that the Iraq war is the heart and soul of that, which I don't.

And that troubles me. I think we risk losing focus; something I believe happened when we turned the lion's share of our attention to Iraq, devoting many years and billions of dollars and possibly many American lives to ineffective or self-defeating strategies.

Since the terrorist attacks of September 11th, 2001, how have you and the department been assessing the success and efficacy of policies designed to actually fight terrorist networks, to strengthen the multilateral coalition cooperating to combat these networks, and to prevent these networks from gaining new support and new recruits?

FEINGOLD: And how do you, sort of, measure that success? Do you think the metrics and assessments that we're now using in the fight against terror are sufficient?

I'm going to reiterate, I'm talking here about, not the broader strategy that the president has articulated, but the specific issue of terrorist networks and where they actually exist.

RICE: Well, Senator, there are a number of important elements in the fight on terror, and I'll come back to -- I do think there is a broader context here that has to be understood.

But first of all, when look at the organization that did 9/11, Al Qaida and Osama bin Laden's organization, I think that you would see that we have had considerable success in bringing down the field generals of that organization, people like Khalid Sheik Mohammed and Abu Zubaida and others.

It is true, I'm certain, they work to replace those people but they lose a lot of skill and experience in these field generals who had trained in Afghanistan together and had worked to produce September 11th.

And there's a lot of evidence that we've really hurt the organization in that way. Secondly, in terms of their financing, I think we've made a great deal of progress, not just in the United States in tracking and dealing with terrorist financing, but around the world.

You know, we didn't understand, really, the structure of terrorist financing very well. We didn't understand the role of non- governmental organizations that sounded like they were for good purposes but were, in fact, carrying out or funding terrorist activities. Others didn't understand that, in the Muslim world, like the Saudis. And we have made, I think, great strides in doing that.

We've made strides in denying them territory. You know, one of the ways that you fight a war is you deny the other side territory. And when you -- when you look at what has happened to them, their world has gotten smaller.

RICE: Afghanistan is not a hospitable environment now for terrorists. It used to be the home base for Al Qaida, with its training camps and its access to Afghanistan's benefits of being a state. They can no longer count on Pakistan, which had such strong ties to the Taliban that it was not really an aggressive actor against Al Qaida. They can no longer count on not being pursued up in the Northwest Frontier, the federally administered tribal areas that hadn't been governed by Pakistan for -- hadn't been ever governed by Pakistan. They can't count on that territory. So we are denying them territory.

FEINGOLD: Dr. Rice, I don't share the view that they've lost territory actually. I happen to have supported the invasion of Afghanistan and understand absolutely why we had to do that. I've done a fair amount of work in East Africa and Northern Africa. We aren't denying the terrorist elements to those territories, when it comes to Somalia, or Algeria, or the activities that have occurred in Kenya. Our focus on Iraq has been so single-minded and, in fact, I was told by some of our own officials in that region this past week that a lot of things have gone waiting because of the demands of the Iraq invasion in terms of dealing with this issue in North Africa and in Eastern Africa. I know there are efforts going on and I encourage those efforts and I support them. But in terms of the balance, I think the balance has not been correct.

RICE: Senator, in East Africa, we have a very effective set of partnerships and counterterrorism strategy with, for instance, Kenya. Somalia is a particular problem, a unique problem given that it's ungoverned, in effect. And the problem there is to try and bring about some kind of stable government in the long run. But in the meantime, we have worked with Somalia's neighbors to try and increase their capacity to deal with counterterrorism...

FEINGOLD: Dr. Rice, I see my time's up. But we have no policy in Somalia. Our government has no policy in Somalia. And we simply must reverse that if we're going to get serious about terrorism.

RICE: But, Senator, our intention in Somalia is to try to work with the IGAD process there to bring about a government. It has been extremely difficult. In the meantime, we've tried to contain the terrorist threat in Somalia by working with Kenya and with others in East Africa. But I will tell you, Senator -- I'd just like to make one final point -- I do sit every day and look at the terrorist threat reporting that's coming in. I look every day at the efforts to disrupt terrorism around the world. And I can tell you that the reports come from every -- practically every service in the world, because our liaison relationships are so much more developed now, that when you have a situation like we faced back in December of last year, where we thought there might be an imminent threat to the United States, that we're able to mobilize law enforcement around the world, that you do get major take-downs of terrorists in places like Pakistan, which had been a central place for them to operate. We are making a lot of progress in this. But I know that there are differences on the question of what the ultimate antidote to terror is. And it is our view, and the president's view, that the ultimate antidote is to deal with the source of that terror, and that really is ultimately the freedom deficit. And that in order to do that, you've got to have a different kind of Middle East. And that's why we do see Iraq as being a part of that war on terrorism.

FEINGOLD: Just one last comment. Certainly, the freedom deficit is a legitimate way to look at this. But I think the reality of failed states and lawless areas is just as important in terms of the terrorist threat and needs to be considered in that regard. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

LUGAR: Thank you very much, Senator Feingold. Senator Voinovich?

VOINOVICH: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. First of all, I'd like to publicly thank Secretary Powell and Secretary Armitage for the outstanding -- and their team for the outstanding job that they've done for this country during the last four years. I'd like to thank you, also, for being willing to come before us to seek confirmation as secretary of state of the United States of America. I couldn't help but think, as I have heard my colleagues ask questions here today, the enormous responsibilities that you're taking on in terms of the world. There's no country in the world where a foreign minister is being asked questions about the whole world. And you're being asked questions about the whole world. And what are you going to do? And I'd like to share with my colleagues that one of the things that we all ought to be concerned about is whether or not the new secretary of state is going to have the budget and the human capital that she is going to need to get the job done.

VOINOVICH: Are we going to prioritize, in terms of this nation, the money necessary so that many of the questions that have been asked here at this table about, What are you going to do about this, and what are you going to be doing about that? are going to be -- we're going to be able to do something about it, and at the same time, maybe look at our own tax policy, and give consideration to what Senator Sarbanes has been talking about, the trade deficit that's looming and the account deficit.

And I'm very happy to hear that Bob Zoellick is interested in coming over, because Bob's got tremendous background in the area of trade, which I think is essential to almost everything that you'll be doing.

I was glad also, in your testimony you said that, More than ever, America's diplomats will need to be active in spreading democracy, fighting terror, reducing poverty and doing our part to protect the American homeland. I will personally work to ensure that America's diplomats have the tools they need to do their jobs, from training to budgets to mentoring to embassy security.

We expect you to come here before this committee and give us what you think you need to get the job done. And I think it's your job to advocate to the administration about what it is you need to get the job done. We've got to be real.

You've dealt with a lot of the major issues that are on everyone's mind. But I think you know I have a particular interest in Southeast Europe, where I spent probably more time than any member of the Foreign Relations Committee. And we've made some progress there.

We've gotten rid of Milosevic. We've gotten rid of Tudjman. Stjepan Mesic just got reelected president of Croatia. Slovenia has joined NATO and the E.U. And there's some real progress being made.

But I am very concerned about what's going on in Serbia- Montenegro today. I'm very concerned about what's happening in Kosovo. Because I really believe that, unless things are stabilized in Serbia-Montenegro and we stabilize things in Kosovo, that we could very well have another crisis on your hands this year, particularly because we're discussing the final status of Kosovo, what's going to be happening there.

I'd like to say that Mark Grossman has done a good job. I'd like to know, where is that on your priority list? And are you familiar with it? And what do you -- you know, we've got our NATO forces over there.

RICE: And so I think we have to have a new, renewed effort on that piece of it, getting our message out. We also have to have a new, renewed effort on getting our people back and forth. Because people, when they come to the United States and see who we are and can get past some of the filter of perhaps some of the sides of America that are not well-liked or respected, I think do come away with a different view of us. And so I will have a strong emphasis on getting our message out, on getting the truth to people, on diminishing the -- on doing something to mitigate against the propaganda that's out there against us, but also on going to our long-time partners and friends, and saying, We have a common purpose here, a great cause ahead of us. And the trans-Atlantic alliance, you know, sometimes it's a little bit like whatever it was that Mark Twain said about Wagner's music. I think he said it's better than it sounds. Well, in fact, our trans-Atlantic alliances are really better than people give us credit for. We're cooperating in a lot of places. We're working hard together in a lot of places. We've had a lot of successes. But we can do more in this period of tremendous opportunity to unify the great democracies, the great alliances for a push to spread freedom and liberty. I think it's an agenda that is inspiring. And I think we've done a lot already, but there is much more that we can do.

VOINOVICH: Thank you.

LUGAR: Thank you very much, Senator Voinovich. Senator Boxer?

BOXER: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Dr. Rice, for agreeing to stay as long as it takes, because some of us do have a lot of questions. And, Senator Lugar, you are a very fair chairman. And I wanted to say to the new members, also, welcome. And you'll enjoy this committee, because we have such a great chairman and such terrific ranking member. And we really do a lot of things in a bipartisan way, unlike other committees. And I think you're going to enjoy your time here. Dr. Rice, before I get to my formal remarks, you no doubt will be confirmed. That's at least what we think.

BOXER: And if you're going to become the voice of diplomacy, this is just a helpful point. When Senator Voinovich mentioned the issue of tsunami relief, you said -- your first words were The tsunami was a wonderful opportunity for us. Now, the tsunami was one of the worst tragedies of our lifetime, one of the worst, and it's going to have a 10-year impact on rebuilding that area. I was very disappointed in your statement. I think you blew the opportunity. You mentioned it as part of one sentence. And I would hope to work with you on this, because children are suffering; we're worried they're going to get in the sex trade. This thing is a disaster -- a true natural disaster and a human disaster of great proportions. And I hope that the State Department will take a huge lead under your leadership in helping those folks in the long range. Mr. Chairman, again, I thank you. Dr. Rice, I was glad you mentioned Martin Luther King -- was very appropriate, given everything. And he also said -- Martin Luther King -- quote, Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about the things that matter. And one of the things that matters most to my people in California and the people of America is this war in Iraq. Now, it took you to page three of your testimony to mention the word Iraq. You said very little, really, about it, and only in this questioning have you been able to get into some areas. Perhaps you agree with President Bush who said, All that's been resolved -- I'm quoting today's Post. Bush said in an interview last week with The Washington Post that the '04 election was a moment of accountability for the decisions he made in Iraq. But today's Washington Post-ABC poll found that 58 percent disapprove of his handling of the situation to 40 percent who approve and only 44 percent said the war was worth fighting.

BOXER: So in your statement, it takes you to page three to mention the word Iraq. Then you mention it in the context of elections, which is fine. But you never even mentioned indirectly the 1,366 American troops that have died or the 10,372 who have been wounded, many mentally. There's a report that I read over the weekend that maybe a third will come home and need help because of what they saw. It's been so traumatic to them. And 25 percent of those dead are from my home state. This from a war that was based on what everyone now says, including your own administration, were falsehoods about WMDs, weapons of mass destruction. And I've had tens of thousands of people from all over the country say that they disagree -- although they respect the president, they disagree that this administration and the people in it shouldn't be held accountable. I don't know if you saw the movie The Fog of War. War is a nightmare. You know that. Colin Powell, I think, was the most eloquent I've heard on it, because he's seen it himself. He's been there and done it. And I don't want to have you in a circumstance where you're writing something, years later, about the fog of war. And I'm fearful, if we don't see some changes here, we're going to have trouble. And I think the way we should start is by trying to set the record straight on some of the things you said going into this war. Now, since 9/11, we've been engaged in a just fight against terror. And I, like Senator Feingold and everyone here who was in the Senate at the time, voted to go after Osama bin Laden and to go after the Taliban and to defeat Al Qaida.

BOXER: And you say they have less territory; that's not true. Your own documents show that Al Qaida has expanded from 45 countries in '01 to more than 60 countries today. Well, with you in the lead role, Dr. Rice, we went into Iraq. I want to read you a paragraph that best expresses my views -- and ask my staff if they would hold this up -- and I believe the views of millions of Californians and Americans. It was written by one of the world's experts on terrorism, Peter Bergen, five months ago. He wrote: What we've done in Iraq is what bin Laden could not have hoped for in his wildest dreams. We invaded an oil-rich Muslim nation in the heart of the Middle East, the very type of imperial adventure bin Laden has long predicted was the U.S. long-term goal in the region. We deposed the secular socialist Saddam, whom bin Laden has long despised, ignited Sunni and Shia fundamentalist fervor in Iraq, and have now provoked a defensive jihad that has galvanized jihad-minded Muslims around the world. It's hard to imagine a set of policies better designed to sabotage the war on terror. This conclusion was reiterated last Thursday by the National Intelligence Council, the CIA director's think tank, which released a report saying that Iraq has replaced Afghanistan as the training ground for the next generation of professionalized terrorists. That's your own administration's CIA. NIC Chairman Robert Hutchings said Iraq is, quote, a magnet for international terrorist activity. And this was not the case in '01. And I have great proof of it, including a State Department document that lists every country in which Al Qaida operated prior to 9/11, and you can see the countries. No mention of Iraq. And this booklet was signed off on by the president of the United States, George W. Bush -- was put out by George Bush's State Department and he signed it. There was no Al Qaida activity there. No cells. Now, the war was sold to the American people, as chief of staff to President Bush Andy Card said, like a new product. Those are his words. Remember, he said, You don't roll out a new product in the summer. Now, you rolled out the idea and then you had to convince the people as you made your case with the president. And I personally believe -- this is my personal view -- that your loyalty to the mission you were given, to sell this war, overwhelmed your respect for the truth. And I don't say it lightly. And I'm going to go into the documents that show your statements and the facts at the time. Now, I don't want the families of those 1,366 troops that were killed or the 10,372 that were wounded to believe for a minute that their lives and their bodies were given in vain. Because when your commander in chief asks you to sacrifice yourself for your country, it is the most noble thing you can do to answer that call. I am giving their families, as we all are here, all the support they want and need. But I also will not shrink from questioning a war that was not built on the truth. Now, perhaps the most well-known statement you've made was the one about Saddam Hussein launching a nuclear weapon on America with the image of quote, quoting you, a mushroom cloud. That image had to frighten every American into believing that Saddam Hussein was on the verge of annihilating them if he was not stopped. And I will be placing into the record a number of such statements you made which have not been consistent with the facts. As the nominee for secretary of state, you must answer to the American people and you are doing that now through this confirmation process. And I continue to stand in awe of our founders, who understood that ultimately those of us in the highest positions of our government must be held accountable to the people we serve. So I want to show you some statements that you made regarding the nuclear threat and the ability of Saddam to attack us. Now, on July 30th, 2003, you were asked by PBS NewsHour's Gwen Ifill, if you continue to stand by the claims you made about Saddam's nuclear program in the days and months leading up to the war. In what appears to be an effort to downplay the nuclear weapons scare tactics you used before the war, your answer was, and I quote: It was a case that said he was trying to reconstitute. He's trying to acquire nuclear weapons. Nobody ever said that it was going to be the next year. So that's what you said to the American people on television: Nobody ever said it was going to be the next year. Well, that wasn't true. Because nine months before you said this to the American people, what had George Bush said? President Bush at his speech at the Cincinnati Museum Center: If the Iraqi regime is able to produce, buy or steal an amount of highly enriched uranium a little longer than a single softball, it could have a nuclear weapon in less than a year. So the president tells the people there could be a weapon. Nine months later, you said no one ever said he could have a weapon in a year, when, in fact, the president said it. And here's the real kicker: On October 10th, '04, on Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace, three months ago, you were asked about CIA Director Tenet's remark that prior to the war he had, quote, made it clear to the White House that he thought the nuclear weapons program was much weaker than the program to develop other WMDs. Your response was this: The intelligence assessment was that he was reconstituting his nuclear programs; that left unchecked he would have a nuclear weapon by the end of the year. So here you are, first contradicting the president and then contradicting yourself. So it's hard to even ask you a question about this, because you are on the record basically taking two sides of an issue. And this does not serve the American people. If it served your purpose to downplay the threat of nuclear weapons, you said, No one said he's going to have it in a year. But then later, when you thought perhaps you were on more solid ground with the American people, because at the time the war was probably popular, or more popular, you say, We thought he was going to have a weapon within a year. And this is -- the question is, this is a pattern here of what I see from you on this issue, on the issue of the aluminum tubes, on the issue of whether Al Qaida was actually involved in Iraq, which you've said many times. And in my rounds -- I don't have any questions on this round because I'm just laying this out -- I do have questions on further rounds about similar contradictions. It's very troubling. You know, if you were rolling out a new product like a can opener, who would care about what we said? But this product is a war. And people are dead and dying. And people are now saying they're not going to go back because of what they experienced there.
And it's very serious. And as much as I want to look ahead -- and we will work together on a myriad of issues -- it's hard for me to let go of this war because people are still dying. And you have not laid out an exit strategy. You've not set up a timetable. And you don't seem to be willing to, A, admit a mistake, or give any indication of what you're going to do to forcefully involve others. As a matter of fact, you've said more misstatements: that the territory of the terrorists has been shrinking when your own administration says it's now expanded to 60 countries. So I am deeply troubled. Thank you.

RICE: Senator, may I respond?

LUGAR: Yes. Let me just say that I appreciate the importance of Senator Boxer's statement, that's why we allowed the statement to continue for several more minutes (inaudible) time.

BOXER: I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I lost track of the time.

LUGAR: But, clearly, you ought to have the right to respond. And then, at that point, we're going to have a recess. But will you please give your response?

RICE: Yes. Senator, I am more than aware of the stakes that we face in Iraq, and I was more than aware of the stakes of going to war in Iraq. I mourn the dead and honor their service. Because we have asked American men and women in uniform to do the hardest thing, which is to go and defend freedom and to give others an opportunity to build a free society which will make us safer. Senator, I have to say that I have never, ever lost respect for the truth in the service of anything. It is not my nature. It is not my character. And I would hope that we can have this conversation and discuss what happened before and what went on before and what I said, without impugning my credibility or my integrity. The fact is that we did face a very difficult intelligence challenge in trying to understand what Saddam Hussein had in terms of weapons of mass destruction. We knew something about him. We knew that we had gone to war with him twice in the past, in 1991 and in 1998. We knew that he continued to shoot at American aircraft in the no-fly zone as we tried to enforce the resolutions that the U.N. Security Council had passed. We knew that he continued to threaten his neighbors. We knew that he was an implacable enemy of the United States, who did cavort with terrorists. We knew that he was the world's most dangerous man in the world's most dangerous region. And we knew that in terms of weapons of mass destruction, he had sought them before, tried to build them before, that he had an undetected biological weapons program that we didn't learn of until 1995, that he was closer to a nuclear weapon in 1991 than anybody thought. And we knew, most importantly, that he had used weapons of mass destruction. That was a context that, frankly, made us awfully suspicious when he refused to account for his weapons of mass destruction programs, despite repeated Security Council resolutions and despite the fact that he was given one last chance to comply with Resolution 1441. Now, there were lots of data points about his weapons of mass destruction programs. Some were right and some were not. But what was right was that there was an unbreakable link between Saddam Hussein and weapons of mass destruction. That is something that Charlie Duelfer, in his report of the Iraq Survey Group, has made very clear: that Saddam Hussein intended to continue his weapons of mass destruction activities, that he had laboratories that were run by his security services. I could go on and on. But, Senator Boxer, we went to war, not because of aluminum tubes. We went to war because this was the threat of weapons of mass destruction in the hands of a man against whom we had gone to war before, who threatened his neighbors, who threatened our interests, who was one of the world's most brutal dictators and it was high time to get rid of him. And I'm glad that we're rid of him. Now, as to the statement about territory and the terrorist groups, I was referring to the fact that the Al Qaida organization of Osama bin Laden, which once trained openly in Afghanistan, which once ran with impunity in places like Pakistan, can no longer count on hospitable territory from which to carry out their activities. In the places where they are, they are being sought and run down and arrested and pursued in ways that they never were before.

RICE: So we can have a semantic discussion about what it means to take or lose territory. But I don't think it's a matter of misstatement to say that the loss of Afghanistan, the loss of the northwest frontier of Pakistan, the loss of running with impunity in places like Saudi Arabia, the fact that now intelligence networks and law enforcement networks pursue them worldwide means that they have lost territory where they can operate with immunity.

BOXER: Mr. Chairman, I'm going to take 30 seconds, with your permission. First of all, Charles Duelfer said, and I quote -- here it is. I ask unanimous consent to place in the record Charlie Duelfer's report.

LUGAR: It will be placed in the record.

BOXER: Which he says, Although Saddam clearly assigned a high value to the nuclear progress and talent that had been developed up to '91, the program ended and the intellectual capital decayed in the succeeding years. Here's the point: You and I could sit here and go back and forth and present our arguments, and maybe somebody watching the debate would pick one or the other depending on their own views. But I'm not interested in that. I'm interested in the facts. So when I ask you these questions, I'm going to show you your words not my words. And, if I might say, again you said you're aware of the stakes in Iraq. We sent our beautiful people -- and thank you, thank you so much for your comments about them -- to defend freedom. You sent them in there because of weapons of mass destruction. Later, the mission changed when there were none. I have your quotes on it. I have the president's quotes on it. And everybody admits it but you that that was the reason for the war. And then once we're in there, now it moved to a different mission. Which is great, we all want to give democracy and freedom everywhere we can possibly do it, but let's not rewrite history. It's too soon to do that.

RICE: Senator Boxer, I would refer you to the president's speech before the American Enterprise Institute in February prior to the war, in which he talked about the fact that, yes, there was the threat of weapons of mass destruction but he also talked to the strategic threat that Saddam Hussein was to the region. Saddam Hussein was a threat, yes, because he was trying to acquire weapons of mass destruction. And, yes, we thought that he was -- that he had stockpiles, which he did not have. We had problems with the intelligence. We are all, as a collective polity of the United States, trying to deal with ways to get better intelligence. But it wasn't just weapons of mass destruction. He was also a place -- his territory was a place where terrorists were welcomed, where he paid suicide bombers to bomb Israel, where he had used Scuds against Israel in the past, and so we knew what his intentions were in the region, where he had attacked his neighbors before and, in fact, tried to annex Kuwait, where we'd gone to war against him twice in the past. It was the total picture, Senator, not just weapons of mass destruction, that caused us to decide that post-September 11th, it was finally time to deal with Saddam Hussein.

BOXER: Well, you should you read what we voted on when we voted to support the war, which I did not, but most of my colleagues did. It was WMD, period. That was the reason and the causation for that particular vote. But again, I just feel, you quote President Bush when it suits you, but you contradicted him when he said, Yes, Saddam could have a nuclear weapon in less than a year. You go on television, nine months later, and said, Nobody ever said it was going to be.

RICE: Senator, that was just a question of pointing out to people that there was an uncertainty, that no one was saying that he would have to have a weapon within a year for it to be worth it to go to war.

BOXER: Well, if you can't admit to this mistake, I hope that you will rethink it.

RICE: Senator, we can have this discussion in any way that you would like. But I really hope that you will reframe from impugning my integrity. Thank you very much.

BOXER: I'm not. I'm just quoting what you said. You contradicted the president and you contradicted yourself.

RICE: Senator, I'm happy to continue the discussion. But I really hope that you will not imply that I take the truth lightly.

LUGAR: Let me intervene, at this point now. We've had four hours of good hearing. And we thank all members for their constancy. And we're going to recess. And I going to suggest that we come back at 2:30. Is that convenient for you, Dr. Rice?

RICE: Perfect.

LUGAR: Very well, we recess until 2:30. (RECESS)

LUGAR: Our hearing is called to order again.

LUGAR: The chair recognizes Senator Murkowski for a 10-minute round of questioning.

MURKOWSKI: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It's a privilege and honor to be part of the committee. And I appreciate the warm welcome from you and the other committee members. Welcome to you, Dr. Rice. The opportunity to sit down and speak with you a couple of weeks ago was greatly welcomed. And it was a chance for me to speak to some of the issues that, as a new member to this committee, were important to just, kind of, have that discussion and get on the table. One of the issues that is really quite paramount in Alaskans' mind is the situation over in North Korea. Our proximity in that region is one that causes us to look very carefully at what is happening in North Korea and what is happening particularly with the nuclear weapons program over there. I'm heartened to hear from the media reports that North Korea appears willing to restart the six-party talks. And again, I think Alaskans are anxious to know that there will be success there. Looking beyond the talks and further down the road, I'm curious to know your views on a future North Korea. We recognize that for these past many years, about 60 years or so, under the reign of Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il, an entire generation of North Koreans, including their military leaders, have basically been brainwashed into believing that their military can defeat the armed forces of any country in this world. And this raises considerable concern in the event of a regime change about who has control over the North Korean military and what actions that military or an individual commander might take. So as the administration moves forward in these six-party talks, what steps will you take to develop the relationships with North Korea's future leadership?

RICE: Well, thank you very much, Senator Murkowski. We did have an opportunity to talk about a number of issues. And I recognize the importance of this issue to everyone, because obviously North Korea is a very dangerous power and one that has been intent on seeking weapons of mass destruction, and particularly nuclear weapons. Let me start by just saying that it is important to repeat that North Korea should understand fully that we have a deterrent against any North Korean action or attempts at action, because we have a very strong alliance with South Korea, a very technologically sophisticated alliance that is getting more so with the changes that we are discussing with the South Koreans about how to realign military forces on the peninsula. And we do have, as you mentioned, a very active diplomacy now through the six-party talks, which brings all of the neighborhood together to say to the North Koreans, You do not have a choice. If you intend to a be part of the international system, you have got to give up your nuclear weapons programs. And that's an important innovation, because it speaks, in a part, to the broader question of how we manage a problem like North Korea in the neighborhood.

RICE: It is not something that the United States wants to have to do unilaterally. It's something that we're much better off doing with South Korea, with Japan, with Russia, and most especially with China, which is playing an important role in the six-party talks, and it needs to continue to play an active role. This is a very closed and opaque society that we're dealing with when we're dealing with North Korea. It is a sad thing that there probably is no more desperate population than the population of North Korea in terms of starvation, in terms of repression. The United States has no problem with the people of North Korea, and in fact, we have consistently been a large food aid donor to North Korea, because we do not want the people of North Korea to suffer. It doesn't have to be this way. There is another path, and we've made clear to the North Korean regime that the president of the United States has said, and that the United States has no intention to attack North Korea, to invade North Korea, that multilateral security assurances would be available to North Korea, to which the United States would be party, if North Korea is prepared to give up its nuclear weapons program, verifiably and irreversibly. So we will continue to work on that issue. It is very hard actually to make contact with the North Korean people at all. But to the degree that we can, through South Korean contacts, try to encourage the North Korean people that there might be a better future for them, I think that is an important thing to do. But our goal now has to be to make the six-party mechanism work for dealing with the North Korean nuclear program and then hopefully for dealing with the broader problem of managing this dangerous regime. I hope that they will follow through and that indeed they do intend to restart the six-party talks. We have an offer on the table that we put there in the last round of the six-party talks.

RICE: It was an offer that I think all other parties thought moved the ball forward. We've heard nothing really from North Korea, and I hope that they will actually act because we've found that their words are not always completely reliable.

MURKOWSKI: We also had a chance to talk a little bit about the Arctic Council. This is probably not a question that you're going to get from anybody else on this panel, so I will take the time to ask it. I know that my colleague here from Florida is not going to ask it, so I will. (LAUGHTER) But one of the things that I hope to achieve or to work on during my time here on the Foreign Relations Committee is to raise my colleagues' and the rest of the United States' awareness of -- and just really the knowledge of the Arctic regions. And there's a lot of focus right now on what's going on up north because of the climate change. We're wondering whether or not this is a permanent event or whether it's just part of a natural cycle. But we do know that it's a reality. We do know that it will have an impact on our lands, particularly up north. And what we're seeing is there's a potential for increased circumpolar maritime commercial activity, which is going to impact our northernmost boundaries, as well as substantial new scientific exploration in the Arctic region. Now, along with the Arctic nations, the U.S. is a member of the Arctic Council, which was formed to address the common problems of the many Arctic nations. And so far as I can tell, our role, the U.S. role, within this council has been underutilized in furthering our relationship with our Arctic neighbors. So my question to you at this time is: What role do you see for international institutions like the Arctic Council in U.S. foreign policy, and how can we use our Arctic location to further this country's interests? It's a very important point that I'd like to make about the broader question that you asked. And I do think that on issues of this kind, we can work both internationally and regionally, in a sense, the most interested and affected countries. I would like to spend some time talking with you about what more we might do in the Arctic Council. I know we've been supportive of the Arctic Council and members, but perhaps there is more that we can do. It speaks -- for instance, you mentioned the global environmental issues like climate change. We have a lot to offer in terms of the science and the technology, and we ought to be and are trying to develop relations with others who are interested in harnessing that science and that technology to deal with some of the environmental challenges that we have. And so I very much look forward to talking with you about what role we can play. There's some important countries that probably share interests. For instance, the Russians would probably share interests, and this is another area for potential cooperation. And so I look forward to having a chance to look at what more we can do.

MURKOWSKI: I think it is an opportunity for us. And it's something that needs to be cultivated in order to work to our advantage. So I do look forward to that opportunity with you. Very general, this might be a softball to you, but how is the administration working to improve the role of women in the Middle East and elsewhere in the world?

RICE: Well, in fact, it may be one of the most important things that we do over the next few years. We've already tried to do a lot. I think there's no doubt that the Afghanistan situation, which was really one of the true horrors houses for women, and I know that Senator Boxer and others were very involved in trying to promote the cause of women in Afghanistan, well, we promoted the cause by the overthrow of the Taliban. It's a remarkable thing that the first person to vote in Afghanistan was a young woman.

RICE: It's a remarkable thing that women can now see a doctor without a male relative's permission, that they can no longer be punished for letting one little hair show out from under the veil, that women are taking their rightful place in Afghan society. And I think it is in their documents, like their new constitution, that women are considered equal citizens. That may seem like a small thing, but in a region of the world where women have been anything but equal citizens, to have that enshrined in the Afghan constitution -- and it's in the TAL, or the Transitional Administrative Law for Iraq -- these are important steps forward for women. We've also been very outspoken about the need of every society to make sure that women's rights are protected. It is a part of the agenda in the Broader Middle East Initiative, where clearly countries are going to move at different speeds on this issue, but where you have to put on the agenda that you cannot function as a modern society if half your population is essentially kept out of the political process. And we are particularly interested in women's education, the education of girls, which in some of these societies, stops when girls are 10 or 11 years old. Pressing the case for the education of girls is an important part of what we're doing, helping to empower women politically through political activity and civil society activity. And we've done more than just in the Middle East, which is to be very active on, for instance, the trafficking in persons initiative, which benefits women because very often the people who are trafficked, particularly for sex crimes, are women. And the president went to the United Nations, put this on the agenda. We've gotten a resolution about it. And we are prosecuting people here and pressing countries to prosecute people on this very terrible crime. Finally, I would just mention the HIV/AIDS initiative, which has a mother-to-child transmission element as well as helping caregivers, who many times are women, to deal with the travails of dealing with relatives with AIDS, preventing further infections, many of whom would be women. This is a broad agenda of helping women. And it is in our moral interest, of course, to do so, but it's also in the interest of these societies, economically and in terms of modernity, that women take a rightful place and are fully contributing to the prosperity of these societies.

MURKOWSKI: Thank you. Appreciate that.

LUGAR: Thank you very much, Senator Murkowski. Senator Nelson? NELSON: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Dr. Rice, Senator Dodd and Chafee and I just returned from visiting with four Latin American presidents in their respective countries. And we are certainly of one mind that we need to be more engaged in the region. When a leader such as Chavez in Venezuela starts lurching to the left, and yet we have a dependency there of some 13 percent to 15 percent of our daily consumption of oil coming from Venezuela, clearly one part of our foreign policy ought to be that we ought to start planning on weaning ourselves from that dependence, not even to speak of the global dependence that we now have on foreign oil. NELSON: But here's one right in our neighborhood. And Chavez has threatened, from time to time, that he was going to cut it off. Now, that's a hollow threat because there are no refineries that, outside of the Gulf coast, that can do it, although it would take them a year, maybe two, to build those kind of refineries if, for example, they struck a deal in China to take his oil. We clearly urge you that we need a Latin American policy that will get us engaged a lot more. And then, in the places where we see the presidents of those countries really trying to do something, and, in fact, having an effect, such as Toledo in Peru, such as Paraguay, such as Argentina's beginning to have some economic uplift, that if America is more engaged, it's going to be some wind under their wings. And it's going to help stem that if a Chavez continues to go leftward, that we will enable those other countries, who are more centrist, to corral him in or at least have a chance of doing it. So that's a little message that I bring you from the activities of the last week. Now, elsewhere in the hemisphere -- and you can appreciate this since I represent the state of Florida -- Haiti is a disaster. And it's going to continue to be a disaster until we get engaged and do something seriously, along with particularly the other nations of the Western Hemisphere, financially and politically to help them. I've had a difference of opinion with the administration. And I think you did have a policy of regime change. And although Aristide was a bad guy -- you know, it's kind of hard to say we support democracy and elections and then we go and push him out. But that's done. Looking forward, we're getting close to the authorized support now under the U.N. peacekeeping force of 6,700 military and 1,600 civilian police. Do you think that's an adequate number?

RICE: Well, I believe that the number that has been determined -- 6,700 or so, led by Brazil, as a stabilization force now, after the initial stabilization was done by the United States and the French and others, is judged to be adequate to the task. The question has really been about more of what can that force do. And I think the expansion of it, of a more aggressive stance by that force in going into areas that are particularly violent and dealing with the violence and the militias in those areas is probably really the question that we have to deal with. I'm glad, Senator, you mentioned the police forces, because in the long run, what really will help Haiti is that it needs a professional civilian police force that can be counted on to enforce law, not to break law. And we have, as you well know, dispatched civilian police trainers from the United States and from other places to try and engage in that activity. But I agree completely. Unfortunately, Haiti seems to be a place where natural and manmade disasters have come together in a really terrible way for the Haitian people. They do have a new chance now. They have a transitional government that is trying to arrange elections in the fall. We need to support that process. And we have had a successful donor conference recently with a $1 billion commitment, the United States is about $230 million of that. And so... NELSON: The problem is they never follow through.

RICE: Senator, I agree. We have to press very hard on people to follow through on the pledges that they make. That's a problem worldwide. NELSON: And this has been going on for 200 years of Haiti's history. Now, when the U.N. comes up for reauthorizing, in the Security Council, that peacekeeping force, what's going to be your posture about considering an expansion of that peacekeeping force? This is a country of 7.5 million and a lot of them are outside in those areas that are now defoliated, thus, the mud, the slides after the storms and so forth.

RICE: Senator, we've been focused now on trying to stabilize the situation with the stabilization force that is there. The Brazilians have done a fine job of leading that. And I just might mention that this is the first time that a lot of those countries, many of whom are from the hemisphere, have actually done peacekeeping in the Western Hemisphere. And so this is a step forward for the neighbors to embrace Haiti in the way that they have. What more will be needed, I have to demure. I think we need to look at the situation. But for now, I think we're in the right place in terms of peacekeeping forces. We have been concerned about what missions they were prepared to take on. And that is being resolved. And there is a more aggressive posture. And we really have to put a major effort into the civilian police development. We also -- as you are absolutely right, people pledge; they don't follow through. And we have money to put Haitians to work. We have money to help restart the Haitian economy, but we've got to follow through. NELSON: Well, then I want to suggest something to you. And it's a bill that is sponsored by one of our Republican colleagues, Mike DeWine of Ohio. And it's called the HERO Act, which is an acronym. But what it does is it allows textiles to come in, like we already have in the Caribbean Basin Initiative in other areas in the Caribbean, but it allows it for Haiti. And then they can come duty free into the U.S. It would foster an economic uplift by creating jobs. But we can't get the administration to support it. It's a Republican senator's bill.

RICE: Senator, I think we believe at this point that the best course with Haiti is to work with them to take full advantage of the Caribbean Basin Initiative, to work with them on job creation through some of the programs that we have out of our economic support fund for Haiti. They will benefit in a secondary way from what happens in Central America with trade, if CAFTA can be passed. And so at this point, we think we have the right tools. We just have to make it work. I understand fully the concerns about Haiti both from a humanitarian point of view and also from a stability point of view. And we probably dodged a bullet in the earlier days with the ability to get Aristide out peacefully, because he had lost the ability to control that country, to govern authoritative authoritatively in that country. But we have a lot of work ahead of us in Haiti. I'd be the first to admit it. NELSON: Madam Secretary-designate, you can make a difference. If you'll jump on that horse and ride it and keep on it over the next four years of your tenure, it'll start to pay huge dividends. And nobody's done that. We go in and we fix a problem, then we turn around and we leave it, and so do the other nations, and then Haiti just goes back into chaos. Let me shift to the other side of the globe: Iran. What specific steps will you advocate to stop Iran's nuclear program? And I'm talking about beyond the noise that we hear from Europe. This senator doesn't think that's going to cut it.

RICE: Well, Senator, this is a problem that we're trying to approach both multilaterally and through some bilateral pressure. And we were the first to really put the Iranian nuclear program on the table when the president did his speech, his State of the Union speech, and identified the Iranian nuclear program. I can remember back in the early days, Senator, people didn't take nearly as seriously that Iran was actually trying to, under cover of its nonproliferation treaty access to civilian nuclear energy, to build a nuclear weapons program. I think people now, because of Iranian behavior, are very skeptical and suspicious of what the Iranians are doing. NELSON: Are you ready for sanctions?

RICE: Well, we already have an awful lot of sanctions on Iran unilaterally. There's really not terribly much more we can do. But I do... NELSON: How about getting Europe to go along?

RICE: Well, Senator, I would take as a first step that if the Iranians do not show that they're going to live up to their international obligations, that we refer them to the Security Council. That has been our policy, that when you're in violation of your obligations under the NPT, that you get referred to the Security Council. And the IAEA has been, I think, documenting that the Iranians have not been serious about their obligations. So at some point, that may be exactly where we need to go. We are making some progress in unifying people's view of what the Iranians are doing and putting pressure on the Iranians. We do work with the E.U.-3 to try to help them formulate a strategy that would really hold Iran accountable, not just take Iran's word for it. And we've made some progress in getting people who engage in bilateral assistance with Iran to be more cognizant of some of the proliferation risks. For instance, the Russians who have a civilian nuclear power program with Iran and their reactor at Bushehr, now say to the Iranians that you will have to return the fuel, in other words, close the fuel cycle and sign the additional protocol. Those are all positive steps. We need to continue to take those. But Senator, the spirit of your question is that, at some point, Iran has to be held accountable for its unwillingness to live up to its international obligations. And I could not agree more. NELSON: Hopefully sooner than later.

RICE: I could not agree more. Thank you very much, Senator Nelson. Senator Alexander?

ALEXANDER: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Dr. Rice, welcome and congratulations, and thank you for being here today. I apologize to you. I missed part of the hearing, because I was at another hearing for Mike Leavitt, who has been nominated to the Department of HHS. But is wasn't a total loss, because we were talking about early childhood education, and I was able to remind your new colleague in the Cabinet that you began piano lessons at age three and that that is a good sign for early childhood education, to have that kind of example here. I have three questions to ask. They are all subjects that have come up before in one way or the other. And I thought I'd ask them all at once and then give you a chance to comment on them, because they are interrelated. One is about Iraq. One is looking beyond Iraq, and one is to return to the subject that you said almost every Senator had mentioned to you -- Senator Coleman has done some work on, especially on this committee, and that has to do with visas of foreign students (inaudible) effect on our higher education system. I want to think about that in a little different way. Question number one, about Iraq: Some colleagues have suggested and asked you about an exit strategy.

ALEXANDER: I don't think we need an exit strategy. I think we need a success strategy. But I would suggest -- and my question is this -- that after the election that we might take a more realistic and perhaps a different view of how we define success. And so my question is: How many American lives, how long are we willing to take? How much money are we going to spend? What is the definition of success in Iraq? It's one thing to give people their freedom. It's quite another to help build a stable, pluralistic, democratic society. What are the limits on that? That's the first question. Second question: This is beyond Iraq. I know your conversations with the president are between the two of you, but perhaps you can talk about this in a general way. You're the secretary of state. President Bush is president. You're sitting around in a National Security Council meeting in a year or so and someone suggests that we have a circumstance in a Middle Eastern country, some other country, where we need to change a regime, we need to engage in nation building again. What kind of advice would you give the president about what lessons we've learned from Iraq and the other examples of nation building that he ought to consider before he commits us again to one more nation building? I've heard strong words today about Iraq. I wasn't here, but I would have voted to give the president authority to go to Iraq. I think he made a reasonable decision to go. The war was a stunning success, and, in my view, there've been a series of miscalculations since then. You, yourself, have used words like adjustments. I think it's a sign of strength for us when we look back, we see something that we could do better, that we recognize that, learn from that and go ahead. So I'm asking, if we were to consider nation building again -- and we've done it many times since World War II -- what are the lessons for the president? And my own view of that is that there's more than one way to implement the city on the hill moral mission that we have in this country to spread freedom around the world. One way is to change a regime and try to make a country more like ours. Another way might be to celebrate our own values and strengthen ourselves and be a good example, and by doing that, to spread freedom. You, yourself mentioned -- and this leads me to my third point -- the example of foreign students here. All of us, when we travel, we see ministers, we see citizens, business people who've been in this country and who've carried our message, our values, our principles back more effectively than almost anything we can think of. In fact, I think perhaps our most effective method of foreign policy has been our programs that have admitted so many students from around the world to the United States. But there's another aspect of that as well. The number of foreign students attending our major universities, especially the graduate programs in our major research universities such as the one you were provost, Stanford, has dropped dramatically. Applications to American graduate schools declined 28 percent last year. Those from China fell 45 percent; from India, 28 percent. There are several reasons for that. One is that India, China, Germany, Great Britain, all are seeing a brain drain to the United States. We talk a lot about outsourcing of jobs. We have an insourcing of brains. That drop of foreign students, of brain power, hurts our ability to keep our technological edge, and it is of great concern to me over the next ten years. So I'm not just looking at spreading our values around the world. I'm looking very much in our own self-interest in another way, which is what can we do to make certain that we pay more attention, for example, to making sure that students who are here or researchers who've already cleared the visa process don't have to go home for a month to reapply for the same kind of visa. So my questions related are: One, what is our success strategy for Iraq? Number two, based on the lessons for Iraq, what advice would you give our president about some things he might want be to consider in terms of the amount of money, the amount of time, the amount of troops we might have to expend or sacrifice in any future nation-building exercise? What have we learned in Iraq? And number three, what can we do to help you in your new role to make it easier for foreign students to come here, both so we can spread our values around the world and so we can take advantage of their brain power to create jobs for us in the United States?

RICE: Thank you, Senator. Let me take the first of those. And I'll try to segue as you did so well into the second. I do think that in Iraq, you were right. What we need is a success strategy, not be an exit strategy. And that's a very good way to talk about it. The success here is going to be that Iraqis are in charge of their own future and recognize that it is really up to them to make that future one that is inclusive of all of the divisions that have bedeviled Iraq, that we've given them the capability to defend themselves, principally from internal insurgency, but also to give them the ability that their neighbors will understand that Iraq is a stable place, that it is a unified Iraq. One of the obligations, by the way, that we undertook when we decided to change the regime in Iraq was that we'd be concerned about the territorial integrity of Iraq. And we have to keep that obligation. And finally, that they are beginning the process towards the stabilization of the their economy so that the economy could support those first two: a political process and a military insecurity process. I can't give a time line, but I think we will know when the Iraqis are able to have in place institutions, no matter how fragile and no matter how young, where they're actually beginning to try to solve their own problems within those institutions. Now, they're not going to solve them perfectly. They're not probably going to solve them the way that we might necessarily. But you see, step by step over the last year or so, the Iraqis taking more and more responsibility for solving their own political problems. And I would take, for example, what has been going on with the Kurds about provincial elections in Kirkuk. They have been resolving that among themselves. That's an important political process. On the security side, I think it's going to be somewhat clearer. They may need the help of multinational forces for a while, but ultimately, Iraqis have to be willing to defend and fight for their own freedom. And they are showing a desire to fight and defend their own freedom. We have to get them the capacity to do it. And I took note of what Senator Biden and Senator Hagel and others said this morning -- Senator Kerry -- about the need to make sure we're training forces in the right way, that we accelerate that training. I do look forward to General Luck's coming back and letting us know what the next phase ought to be. We face changing circumstances here, but I put a lot of emphasis on getting those security forces trained and then finally helping them economically. So it isn't that we have to see an Iraq that is a fully democratized, mature economy, fully able to deal with all of its divisions. That's going to take a very, very, very long time. What we have to see is that they've been launched on a path to be able to achieve that, that that path is one that is clear ahead for everybody, and where they are taking advantage of that path. And I think we will start to see that after these elections, when (ph) I think they're thinking in those ways. Senator, I've thought 1,000 times about how one thinks about nation-building, something that I famously said we probably wouldn't be involved in. We have been. And it's turned out that we've had to be, because our security depends on states that can function, on not having failed states in the midst. We learned the dangers of an Afghanistan that people left alone after the Soviets left, and we left it as a place that became a terrorist haven. We can't make that mistake again. One of the important lessons that we've learned is that the skills needed to help reconstruct and stabilize a country and put it on a path to stable nationhood are skills that we haven't really had to use in a very long time, maybe since World War II. And one of the reasons that I'm so supportive of this new Office of Reconstruction and Stabilization is I think it starts to give the State Department a focus for those skills. We find ourselves trying to help people create police forces. We find ourselves trying to help people create independent judiciaries that are not going to be wracked by corruption. We find ourselves giving technical assistance on currency. We find ourselves giving people advice about how to start up a ministry in many of these places. We can learn, from the experiences that we've had in Afghanistan and in Iraq, how to put those skills together in a more permanent way and how to be more predictive of what might be needed in places that we know we're going to have to engage in this kind of activity. The office that is there now, I think, needs to look at what is going to be needed in Liberia, what is going to be needed in Sudan, and start to put together those skills now so that you have a civilian counterpart to what our military often does in providing immediate stabilization. Otherwise, we have to depend on the military to do it, and that's not always the best answer. I can tell you how incredibly supportive the uniformed military and the Defense Department are of this idea of an Office of Reconstruction and Stabilization, because they want and understand that the State Department needs to have the kind of expertise that we need to do this. Finally, just on the visa issue, I will be coming back to you on exactly this. I'm, of course, an academic. I was provost of Stanford University. We had a large foreign student population. It was one of the best things for the foreign students, and it was one of the best things for our students too, because they engaged people from other places, as students, not as Chinese or not as Russians, but as students.

RICE: They were all in a common enterprise. It changes the way we think about people. It changes the way they think about us. I have gone abroad so many times and sat and heard the prime minister describe how many American universities his people have come from. And you know what's really remarkable about it? It's not just from Stanford or Harvard or Yale, but it's also from universities like I went to, the University of Denver or Texas A M or Nebraska or, I'm sure, Tennessee. And that's invaluable. And so I will be coming back to you, because these numbers are disturbing and we need to do something to reverse the trend.

ALEXANDER: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'd like to ask to put my entire statement in the record. And if I may just underscore, I just want to emphasize the point, with all the discussion about visas, that we're not just talking about some good will gesture to the world. We're basically talking about recruiting the most talented people in the world who've helped us create our very high standard of living so that 5 percent or 6 percent of people in the world have 25 percent or 30 percent of all the money. That's one of the things we're talking about here. And we're going to lose our capacity to do that to some degree if we don't solve this problem. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

LUGAR: Thank you very much, Senator Alexander. As you can tell, Dr. Rice, the committee is fortunate to have people who have served as governors of the states, members of the Cabinet. But the visa issue was a part of our hearings during last year. Senator Alexander played a leading role in that in the follow-up with a round-table group. It's a very serious issue with the bureaucracy of our country because of homeland security and other purposes has (ph) its points. But we're losing ground. And the committee takes this very seriously. I'm sure you do from your background at Stanford and elsewhere. And so I appreciate his bringing this up and likewise your reiterating the reconstruction idea, which could be called nation- building or reconstruction, but nevertheless so important. And the progress you're making there, I think, is critical. Let me just now call upon Senator Obama for his initial 10 minutes of questioning.

OBAMA: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, members of the committee, Dr. Rice. First of all, let me say how grateful I am to have the opportunity to serve on this committee. I know that it has a wonderful reputation for bipartisanship. And that, I think, is partly due to the excellence of the chairman and the ranking member and the degree to which you both work together extremely closely. So I'm looking forward to my service here. Dr. Rice, it's wonderful to see you here. And I've been very impressed, obviously, with your mastery of the issues. Since it's the day after King's birthday, obviously, 20 or 30 years ago, it's unlikely that I'd be sitting here asking you questions. And so I think that's a testimony to how far we've come, despite how far we still have to go. And I think everybody rightly is extraordinary impressed with your credentials and your experience in this field. I've got three areas I'd like to explore that have already been touched on to some degree. I want to try to see if I can knock out all three of them with the time that I have remaining. The first has to do with the issue of nuclear proliferation, which has already been discussed. But I think it's important to note that in the midst of what was sometimes a very divisive campaign, there was strong agreement between President Bush and Senator Kerry that our number one priority, that our single greatest challenge is keeping nuclear weapons out of the hands of terrorists. And there has been enormous leadership on the part of this committee, and Senator Lugar in particular, working with former Senator Nunn, to move the process forward of securing nuclear material in the former Soviet Union. I am still concerned that less nuclear material, as I understand it, has been secured from the former Soviet Union in the two years after September 11th than the two years prior to September 11th. Now, it may just be that there was low-hanging fruit initially and it starts getting harder as time goes by. But I'm also concerned of the fact that we've never fully funded, it appears to me, the Nunn-Lugar program.

OBAMA: I know that Senator Lugar is going to be presenting an amendment that gives your office more flexibility in this area. I'm hopeful that I'm going to have the opportunity to work with him and my colleagues on this piece of legislation. I guess my question is: How are you going to use this flexibility? Number one, are you going to be seeking full funding? Number two, beyond the existing mechanisms to lock down existing nuclear material, what else are we doing, for example, to make sure that Pakistan has a mechanism in place to ensure that those nuclear weapons or that technology is no longer drifting off into the hands of hostile forces?

RICE: Thank you. First of all, on nuclear proliferation, let me just say that broadly, our strategy has been really threefold: first of all, to be very concerned about the loopholes in the Non-Proliferation Treaty. The Non-Proliferation Treaty is in trouble, because there are countries that have signed onto it and then are using the access to civilian nuclear power to really pursue nuclear weapons programs. Iran is a prime example of that. The president has made a number of proposals -- Senator Lugar has -- we've talked about this -- to close the fuel cycle, to make it not possible for countries to enrich uranium or other fuels to the point that they're left with the fuel, but rather to get a fuel supply from the fuel suppliers that are out there. And it's a proposal that has met with some resistance, but it's something that we're continuing to work on. Clearly, we have to make the proliferation problem somewhat easier by not having countries that are suspect with access to the fuel supply.

OBAMA: Can I interrupt just real quickly?

RICE: Sure.

OBAMA: Is the resistance on those reforms coming simply from countries that are in the midst of development or are we also seeing resistance from allies like France and Germany and others that already have existing nuclear capacity?

RICE: The resistance really is coming from countries that we think have no intention of building a nuclear weapon but who want to maintain the access to their entire civilian nuclear cycle.

RICE: So we've had to talk with some countries about the fact that, yes, under the Non-Proliferation Treaty countries have access to this, but when you get a country that is cheating under that access, that maybe for those countries you shouldn't have the access. So this is a discussion. We got a one-year moratorium on enriching and reprocessing, and we'll try to keep pressing forward. Secondly, we've been very aggressive on what is a really bad problem, which is nuclear entrepreneurship, the kind of A.Q. Khan factor, these black market entrepreneurs who are selling nuclear secrets, selling, in fact, the whole little kit, if you will. And the takedown of the A.Q. Khan network is really one of the most important things that we've done. It will give us information on how this works. We have to put this one out of business, and we have to work to see if there are others. This has all been helped by what happened in Libya, where a country voluntarily gave up its weapons of mass destruction in hopes of a better relationship with the international community. And we have to try and incent that kind of behavior on countries that have pursued weapons of mass destruction. And then, finally, you mentioned -- I should also mention the Proliferation Security Initiative, which, of course, helps us to interdict dangerous cargo. So it's a broad program. But the Nunn-Lugar piece of this is very important. As I said, as an old Soviet specialist, I know a good bit about the dangers there. We have tried to fund it at levels that are adequate to do the work at hand. And you mentioned the securing before 2001 and the securing afterwards. Some of that is exactly as you mentioned, low- hanging fruit. Some of it is that there's a kind of schedule for which sites get secured when. What we have done is to go to the Energy Department and ask them to prioritize, to try to get the most important sites secure in the earliest time. And the timetable has been collapsed to one where, if we keep to schedule, we should be able to secure all materials within the next four years. So we're making some progress. We need to work harder on the bureaucratic impediments to this. There are impediments on both sides.

OBAMA: But my understanding, though, is also that at the current schedule we'd be stretching this process out for potentially 13 years, as opposed to four. Collapsing it will require a little more aggressive movement on the part of the State Department. And I recognize this is difficult. Russia may not always be entirely interested in moving this along as quickly as possible.

OBAMA: But it strikes me that, with the expertise we have on this committee, this is something we would like to work on aggressively.

RICE: And we should certainly work on (inaudible) We do, by the way, have a collapse scheduled for four years. We will see what it takes to get that done. But I appreciate the interest in this. This is something we should work very carefully on.

OBAMA: The second question I have -- and this is something that I think repeatedly comes up as I travel to Illinois. I suspect this is true everywhere, and that is the enormous strain that is being felt by our National Guardsmen and reservists in Iraq. And I did a calculation -- or my staff did -- that I think if Illinois was a country, we'd be 4th or 5th in size of -- as a coalition partner. I think that may be true, in fact, to just the National Guard, alone. Now, I recognize you're not up for confirmation as secretary of defense, presumably, at some point I'll have the opportunity to ask Secretary Rumsfeld about some of these questions. But I am concerned about this notion that was pursued by Senator Biden and others that we've made significant progress in training troops. Because it seems to me that in your response to Senator Alexander that we will not be able to get our troops out absent the Iraqi forces being able to secure their own country, or at least this administration would not be willing to define success in the absence of such security. I never got quite a clear answer to Senator Biden's question as to how many troops -- Iraqi troops -- don't just have a uniform and aren't just drawing a paycheck, but are effective enough and committed enough that we would willingly have our own troops fighting side-by- side with them. The number of 120,000 you gave, I suspect, does not meet those fairly stringent criteria that Senator Biden was alluding to. I just want to make sure, on the record, that you give me some sense of where we're at now. You may not have all of the answers, but I'd like to at least get a better sense of that.

RICE: The number that we consider trained is 120,000. It's a little hard to give a number for exactly the criteria that you are talking about, because a lot of this is a matter of what you experience when these forces actually go into difficulty. We have had -- and everybody understands that we have had problems with people leaving, people deserting. We've had problems with people not coming back. And we've had problems with particularly some of the police forces who are, frankly, undermanned. And one of the things -- are undersuppplied. We are dealing with the structure of the police forces by trying to go to more commando units that are more heavily armed for what is now contact with insurgences, not just what your average beat cop can do. The Iraqi forces have fought pretty well in a number of places. The forces that have fought best are the ones that have clear leadership by Iraqis. And this has caused us to focus more on the need for leadership, for coherent leadership for these forces, and I mean leadership of units, not leadership in the broad sense. And so the Iraqis themselves are spending more time vetting people, experienced leaders who can be brought back to give structure and morale to these people. They're considering the policy of putting some of our people in as really almost mentors with these forces -- really paying more attention to their capability to fight as integral units, not just the numbers of people that we're training. And I think that's going to be responsive to some of the concerns. And one of the points that General Luck will look at is how well that process is going and what more we need to do. But the numbers are 120,000. When they are tested, some perform well and some don't. We have to recognize that this is a very tough environment even for the best-trained forces.

OBAMA: Ours.

RICE: Even for our forces. And while we want to accelerate the training of the forces, we don't want to do what we did in an earlier cycle, I think, which was to accelerate it to the point that we put unprepared forces on the field. So it's a complicated issue. But I think we're trying to work our way through it. We've tried adapt to what are really changing circumstances and changing demands for the Iraqi security force personnel.

OBAMA: Mr. Chairman, I know my time up. I would just make this note, that if our measure is bring our troops home and success is measured by whether Iraqis can secure their own circumstances, and if our best troops in the world are having trouble controlling the situation with 150,000 or so, it sounds like we've got a long way to go. And I think part of what the American people are going to need is some certainty, not an absolute timetable, but a little more certainty than is being provided, because right now, it appears to be an entirely open-ended commitment.

RICE: Senator, if I may just -- to that point, I want to be understood that we are always looking to complete the job, but of course to get our forces home as soon as possible. And it will be a function of our -- their capability and our ability to help them. But there's at least some hope that Iraqis may, themselves, fight this fight somewhat differently and somewhat better because it's their fight. I was asked once: Why are Iraqis better in certain situations than even the best-trained coalition forces? And of course, an Iraqi knows whether that's a Syrian or Saudi or Iraqi. They are of the country, of the culture, and they're fighting for their own freedom. And so one of the standards of success is really that the Iraqis are fighting for their freedom. Even if they're not fully able yet to secure themselves, that they are fighting for their freedom. And I think we are seeing very strong signs of that in the country.

LUGAR: Thank you very much, Senator Obama. I would just want to underline the senator's point, and you have in your own way, Dr. Rice.

But I know when Prime Minister Allawi was here he told some of us around this table that by the time of the election, their officers in (inaudible) country, about a year from now, there'll be at least 200,000 people, who are both police force and national guard, who would be capable, who can, in fact, patrol the streets, could control the country. And then he assured us there will be a good election, unlike what we are likely to see on January 30th.

SUNUNU: Do you intend to recommend a financial assistance package for the new Palestinian leadership to restructure their security forces? And is it likely that that request would be part of a supplemental budget early in the year?

RICE: Thank you, Senator. I will look with others when I get to State at precisely how we might fund the obligations that I'm sure we're going to have to undertake to help the Palestinians in this important period of time. Clearly, the training of the security forces is going to be critical. They've got to fight terrorism. They've got to have trained security forces to do it. It will be a good investment to train those forces. I would just note that we have, through indirect assistance, through the United Nations, through nongovernmental organizations, provided a good deal of funding to Palestinian reconstruction, Palestinian humanitarian needs. We also have -- the president approved the funding of $20 million in direct support to the Palestinians just recently to help with their election. So there is a fund flow, and we will look at what more we need. I would hope that some of this would be funded by their Arab neighbors. I have to say that if people really want a peace, if the countries in the neighborhood, as they come and tell me and they come in to tell the president, they tell Secretary Powell all the time, We have got to have peace; you've got to work on behalf of the Palestinians, then there are a number of their neighbors who could really afford to help fund some of these efforts. And I'm sure that I will be actively seeking their support, because that is one thing that the neighbors could do for the Palestinian people.

SUNUNU: Well, that was my second question, is what can the Arab states do to help. Obviously, with $45 or $50 a barrel oil, the economies there and the revenue base there is much stronger than it has been in past years. Is there any specific role that you see for the Arab states in addition to financial resources? One of the issues that was raised in some of our meetings were perhaps the opportunity to assist in the training of the security forces. And let me be clear, there are two different steps to this. One is restructuring the security forces, which will take resources and funding in and of itself, and a lot of political will. And then the second step would be the training of security forces.

SUNUNU: Is there a particular partner in the region that you think might be best suited to that training role?

RICE: Yes, it appears to me that both the Egyptians and the Jordanians will probably have a role to play. They've played that role before in various ways. And we have had extensive conversations with them, at other times, about playing that role at the conference in Aqaba. And we would want to get them involved. The Egyptians, of course, also have a role to play in helping stabilizing the Gaza, as the Israeli forces withdrawal. And we have talked with them about that. There are other roles that we need the Arab states to play. And I think the most important is, as I mentioned earlier, you can't insight hatred against Israel and say you want a two-state solution. It's just got to stop. They've got to stop it in their media. They've got to stop it in their mosques, because it is a message that is inciting the people who want to destroy the chances for peace between Israel and Palestine -- a Palestinian territory. So we sent that message. And it was probably little noticed, but when we went to Sharm el-Sheikh, the Arabs actually issued a very good statement. And it was on behalf of Arab states, the Arab League, and it was a very good statement. We will be going back to them to remind them of that statement and to ask them to live up to it.

SUNUNU: In addition to the value of that statement, I would mention that one of the things that came up, time and again, was the impact that your visit had on the area and the importance of that kind of high-level engagement. I know you answered some questions with regard to a special envoy. It's something that you have supported in concept. But I would just underscore the value of that high-level engagement, whether it's through a special envoy or your personal commitment.

SUNUNU: You mentioned Egypt and Jordan, so a third question has to do with public diplomacy. You mentioned it in your remarks. It's obviously a goal that's shared by most everyone on this committee, to focus on public diplomacy, and even reform some of our efforts in that area. I believe one of the areas of public diplomacy that has been a success story is that of the American University in Beirut, the American University in Cairo, what it has done for both students in the region and American students seeking to broaden their educational base. I have had suggested to me the initiative of developing an American University in Amman. And I was curious what you thought of that objective, and what kind of support you might lend to such an effort.

RICE: Well, thank you. I will certainly look at it. I haven't taken a look at that and I'd like to have a chance to do that. But I have to say that the two universities that you mentioned have been really extremely important in helping to create a link between the United States and these important countries and in providing a place for moderation in these societies. And so it's certainly the kind of thing that we should look at. We have to look, overall, at what I like to call a conversation, not a monologue. It's one thing to get your message out, which is how we often think about it, but it's also important to engage other cultures. And I would hope that that includes, on the part of the United States, a renewed commitment to the training of Americans in critical languages like Arabic and Farsi and other languages and in the study of those cultures. I was a Soviet specialist, and learned Russian at a time when a lot of us were told that was a good thing to do for the well-being of the country. And we linked our cultural awareness and linguistic awareness to the broader question of how we secured ourselves and how we won the war of ideas. And we have to do that again.

RICE: There are too few of us who are able to engage those societies on their own terms.

SUNUNU: Finally, I'd like you to talk a little bit about the Mideast partnership. This is a new way of looking at financial assistance. It's obviously consistent with the goals that you spoke about in your remarks today -- economic liberalization, political reform. Do you believe that MEPI, as implemented to date, has been successful? Is it a model that we ought to seek to reproduce elsewhere? And how do we ensure that an approach like MEPI and the funding commitment made through the Mideast partnership isn't duplicative of efforts within USAID or other State Department programs?

RICE: On the broader question, there needs to be very close coordination between USAID and the State Department. And I think that that has gotten better, just watching it from the outside. I will obviously know more as I get to the inside. But I really do think that Andrew Natsios and Rich Armitage and Colin Powell have worked very closely together to make sure that all of our resources are going in a way that is not duplicative to further our goals. I am a supporter of MEPI. I think that it is a part of the concrete things that we can do to change the environment in the Middle East. And its focus on good governance, as well as liberalization of economies at the same time that assistance is flowing is a very important innovation. It's also behind the Millennium Challenge Account approach, where I think we now have a consensus about foreign assistance, that foreign assistance has to be a two-way street, that it's not just money going into a country, but it is -- a country has to be devoted to fighting corruption, to liberalizing the economy, to good governance, to spending money on health care and education for the people or it's not going to succeed. And that kind of compact between donor and donee is the future wave, I believe, for foreign assistance.

And so this is an important issue with Syria. And I just want to thank the Congress. We do have, thanks to the Syrian Accountability Act, some tools, but we will have to mobilize them, because Syria should not be, but is thus far not a constructive force.

MARTINEZ: Thank you.

LUGAR: Thank you very much, Senator Martinez.

At this point, I want to have a little discussion. I will not let this become a full-scale debate.

But I want to survey what is possible with the committee, this afternoon, in the hearing. And so I'm going to ask each member who is assembled for some estimate of how many minutes the member would require in raising additional questions.

And we'll try to total that up and come to some to idea, then, of whether we might complete our work this afternoon and, in fact, have a vote on confirmation. Or if that's not in the cards, we'll proceed in regular order so that members have the opportunity to ask the questions that we'd promised everyone they could ask.

RICE: And Senator, I'm willing to stay here longer than the afternoon, if you need me today.

LUGAR: Well, you may be more prepared than all of our members.

(LAUGHTER)

But nonetheless, we'll not debate that either in terms of eagerness.

(LAUGHTER)

But let me just ask Senator Hagel.

HAGEL: (OFF-MIKE) 10 minutes.

LUGAR: About 10 minutes.

Senator Chafee?

CHAFEE: (OFF-MIKE) five.

LUGAR: All right.

Senator Coleman?

COLEMAN: (OFF-MIKE) five. But I'd forgo my five if we came to some consensus that we could vote on this this afternoon.

LUGAR: I see. (inaudible) flexible.

Senator Voinovich?

VOINOVICH: Ten.

LUGAR: Senator Martinez?

MARTINEZ: Sir, I'm also (inaudible) be very flexible.

(LAUGHTER)

LUGAR: All right, well, I read that as somewhere between 30 and 40 minutes...

(LAUGHTER)

... plus or minus a few.

Senator Biden?

BIDEN: I have at least 10 minutes.

LUGAR: Senator Sarbanes?

SARBANES: Another round.

LUGAR: All right. Another 10.

Senator Dodd?

DODD: (OFF-MIKE)

LUGAR: All right.

Mr. Feingold?

FEINGOLD: Ten minutes.

LUGAR: Senator Boxer?

BOXER: (OFF-MIKE) two rounds.

LUGAR: Two hours?

BOXER: Two rounds.

(LAUGHTER)

LUGAR: Two rounds.

BOXER: I don't want two hours.

LUGAR: All right. Very good.

Senator Obama?

(CROSSTALK)

LUGAR: All right. Well, that would be at least 70 minutes or so, it looks like.

And, Senator Murkowski, how many more minutes would you like to question the witness?