Despite violence, Iraqi elections will occur as scheduled, Rice says

By J. Patrick Coolican
Seattle Times staff reporter

Condoleezza Rice, national-security adviser

E-mail this article Print this article Search archive Most read articles Most e-mailed articles

"The plan and the expectation is that every place will participate in elections," Rice said in a wide-ranging discussion with The Seattle Times editorial board.

Rice, President Bush's top national-security aide, said that despite the continuing insurgency and violence, "The political process is moving forward, and that gives people an alternative to the insurgency."

The American military is training Iraqi police to secure the country, said Rice, a Russian scholar and former provost of Stanford University.

Rice said yesterday that Fallujah is controlled by Baathists — Saddam Hussein's old political party — and by some foreign terrorists and expressed confidence in progress there.

But various news agencies have reported recently that the city west of Baghdad and others like it in the Anbar Province are actually controlled by fundamentalist militias intent on imposing Islamic law and not about to negotiate with Iraq's interim government.

At a speech last night at Meany Hall at the University of Washington, Rice sounded at times like a candidate, and a friendly crowd of several hundred rewarded her with rousing ovations as she recounted victories in Afghanistan and Iraq and listed steps she said the administration had taken to make America safer.

Rand Beers, a former national-security official who's advising Sen. John Kerry's presidential campaign on international affairs, condemned the Bush administration's conduct of the war in Iraq during a telephone interview.

Beers said the administration had ignored the advice of its own Middle East experts and that that led to the looting, lawlessness and eventual insurgency after the war.

"The decision to give post-conflict responsibility to the Pentagon was one of the major mistakes. They ignored the 13 volumes of outside thoughtful analysis, and we're all suffering as a result," he said, referring to the pre-war briefing books called "The Future of Iraq Project."

Rice, who coordinates national-security policy among the defense, diplomatic and intelligence agencies, defended the decision to go to war, despite the subsequent failure to find any weapons of mass destruction and the 9/11 commission's conclusion that Saddam did not have a "collaborative" relationship with al-Qaida.
 
"It was time to take care of that threat and build a different kind of Middle East," she said.

Rice, who's often had to resolve bitter conflicts among factions in the administration, also addressed Afghanistan, al-Qaida, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the recent terrorism in Russia and the negotiations with North Korea to end its nuclear-weapons program.

She said Afghanistan had made "remarkable progress," though critics say the country's warlords, including former members of the Taliban, are running the country, especially outside of Kabul.

Rice said she was encouraged by Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's plan to unilaterally withdraw from the Gaza Strip. To make progress on the so-called "Road Map" for peace, she said Palestinians have to create a legitimate political authority that can represent the Palestinian people in good faith.

Though not yet successful, talks among six countries to get North Korea to disarm have a chance at success, Rice said, because the North Koreans are more likely to negotiate with China, South Korea and Japan than with the United States alone.J. Patrick Coolican: 206-464-3315 or jcoolican@seattletimes.com