The Foreign Service Journal, February 2006

Foreign Relations Committee, Rice did elicit skepticism from some Democrats. Sen. Joseph Biden of Delaware, the panel’s ranking minority member, scolded Rice for sticking so assiduously to Bush administration talking points on the Iraq war. He expressed “reservations” and “frustration” before ultimately giving Rice a yea vote in committee. “You sort of stuck to the party line, which seems pretty consistent: You’re always right,” he said with more than a hint of sarcasm. Ultimately, the com- mittee vote to send Rice’s nomination on to the full Senate was 16-2, with only Sens. John Kerry, D-Mass., and Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., voting against her. She then cleared the Senate by an overwhelming 85-13 vote, with two senators not voting. That said, the 13 nays marked the greatest level of opposition to a Secretary of State nominee since World War II. All that good will yielded some early victories, includ- ing a key battle last May: Sens. Robert Byrd, D-W. Va., and John Ensign, R-Nev., sought to strip more than $100 million in funding from a supplemental appropriations bill that was intended for State’s operations in Baghdad in order to redirect the money to border security. Rice went to the mat and won: State kept the funds. Rice has also fended off efforts by other agencies to scale back their obligations to help pay for new embassy construction. A year ago, Congress approved legislation that requires agencies with employees serving in embassies abroad to contribute to State’s Capital Security Cost-Sharing Program, which aims primarily to upgrade security at embassies. Under the program, agencies pay fees to the State Department based on how many staffers they have abroad, something that other departments such as Agriculture, Commerce and Defense had sought to avoid. With this financial assis- tance from other agencies, State expects to finish con- struction of 150 new, more secure overseas facilities in 14 years, rather than the 26 years it would have taken without the aid. “Everything is on track and on sched- ule,” says Fore. “Everyone came to the table. No one was missing.” In recent months, though, Rice has had to deal with dwindling support on Capitol Hill for the war in Iraq. In October, she made a combative appearance at a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing at which all of the committee Democrats and most of the Republicans raised questions about the administration’s handling of the war. Rice staunchly defended current policy, insist- ing that any call for a timetable for withdrawal would undermine efforts to hand over authority to a function- ing Iraqi government. But members of Congress have become more vocal in challenging her about Iraq policy and, increasingly, have moved to distance themselves from it. Rice is well aware that Iraq will be the defining for- eign policy issue of her tenure. Thus, her transforma- tional diplomacy initiative is tightly bound with her mis- sion of ensuring that the United States leaves Iraq a peaceful and democratic nation. Too Tight-Knit an Approach? The controversy over the war has also affected her relationship with Foreign Service officers, many of whom share the concerns raised in Congress, and fur- ther believe that some of the problems could have been avoided if the expert opinions of officers in the field had been taken to heart. Bush administration appointees “have their policies and have a right to vigorously go after them,” says one management officer in Washington who requested anonymity for fear of job repercussions. Expressing a view shared by many of his colleagues, he says: “But insights into who might be trusted or not, and which policies will fly or not fly — that kind of information is not getting to the seventh floor as it used to.” Those assessments match up well with a description of Rice and her approach to management that appeared in the Washington Post last year. Reporter Glenn Kessler wrote that before taking the job, “Rice conclud- ed she did not want to be barricaded by a palace guard on the seventh floor of the State Department — but she also decided she did not want to let the building run her.” As a result, she early on “identified a few key priorities that she believes will define her tenure as Secretary of State, such as promotion of democracy. And then she put together an inner circle that draws heavily on longtime personal connections to her and one another. The result is a powerful and focused group of aides — and some grumbling in parts of the building that have felt their pri- orities ignored or played down.” The management officer says that one clear example of how Rice’s tight-knit approach went awry is the case of Ahmed Chalabi, the Iraqi dissident leader who gained allies in the White House leading up to the Iraq War and F O C U S 20 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / F E B R U A R Y 2 0 0 6