Condoleezza Rice Biography

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Table of Contents

Background
Positive aspects of Condoleezza Rice
Negative aspects of Condoleezza Rice
Conclusion
References

Background

Born in 1954, a political scientist, and the 66^th US secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice was one of the most trusted President Bush’s close allies. She was the “second woman to be appointed in the position of the US secretary of state, the second African American to hold the position, and she served as the national security advisor for President Bush during his first term in office” (Mabry, Bumiller & Kessle, 2008, par. 8).

Prior to this appointment, she was a Stanford University professor for political science. After her appointment as the US secretary of state, Rice engineered the transformational diplomacy policy. The policy aimed at increasing democratic governments to execute their mandates responsibly.

A particular focus was on the Middle East region. Although she had her successes and failures, her policies and political opinions attracted public controversies.

Positive aspects of Condoleezza Rice

Rice’s policy during her tenure as the U.S. secretary of state perceived counter terrorism as essentially a preventive strategy rather than punitive one for enhancing national security. In 2005, she emphasized that Americans had to come into terms with the nature of the threat of terrorism. She argued that terrorism is different from ordinary criminal activities, which government takes reactive approaches to manage.

In case of terrorism, success in committing a crime leads to loss of thousands of lives of innocent people. To her, for such crimes, prevention is better than cure (Mabry, 2007). This view was important in ensuring that Americans felt secure coupled with developing sufficient trust in the capacity of the government to enhance their territorial integrity.

Rice was concerned with the capacity of intelligence community to cooperate coupled with sharing information necessary for prevention of terrorism. Arguably, this aspect was an important concern. Problems of security threats are critical since the modern world is dependent on information flow through interconnected network systems (Albanese, Jajodia, Pugliese & Subrahmanian, 2011).

In 2000, Osama Bin Laden argued that hatred coupled with hostility acerbated towards the Americans constituted a religious calling (Bloss, 2007). Rice reacted to this assertion by pushing for organization of intelligence agencies to ensure the curtailing of terrorism threat directed towards the US.

She insisted that cooperation amongst foreign intelligence agencies, the CIA, and the FBI was vital in ensuring that Osama Bin Laden would not succeed in executing an attack in the US. Arguably, reluctance to embrace this concern had the consequences of the US being caught unprepared by the September 11 attacks.

After September 11 attacks, the US embarked on intensive security surveillance as a strategy for mitigating potential threats such as those voiced by Rice in 2000. Consistent with Rice’s security policy inclination, since the events of Septembers 11, security surveillance was realized through the agencies of ‘preventative law enforcement’ (Bloss, 2007), which accords police an immense surveillance powers.

Consistent with Haggerty and Ericson (2000) arguments that surveillance assemblage is not a stable entity with its own fixed boundaries, the police surveillance expanded to incorporate other entities, which broadened the surveillance approaches coupled with operational approaches. The main aim was to ensure that information gathering was based on intelligence.

Prior to September 2001 attacks, terrorism attacks posing treats to security of the Americans were predominantly from Islamist groups. These threats had little political implications and they often resulted in low death tolls (Adams, Nordhaus & Shellenberger, 2011).

Furthermore, the recorded threats only occurred within battlefields in which the US was engaged in direct confrontation with perceived global security threats. In the events of September 11, it was imperative that the US needed to expand its risks surveillance system. Rice was aware of this need; hence, she contributed towards enhancing the security of the Americans by advocating for policies that minimized threats of terrorism.

Among the many measures included to enhance terrorism surveillance and counterterrorism strategies, which were critical and Rice incredibly supported them. They included denial of a safe operation environment for parties perceived to be terrorists, curtailing impacts of possible people likely to expose the US to terrorism threats and the reduction of accessibility to mass destruction weapons to organized groups (Bloss, 2007).

However, making these strategies operational culminated to launching attacks on Afghanistan and Iraq, which political analysts considered expensive for the US economy.

Negative aspects of Condoleezza Rice

Rice faces criticism from the Democrats for having played significant roles in launching attacks on Iraq. Early March 2014 during a fundraiser for the Republicans, Rice blasted the administration of President Obama over what she termed as poor management and handling of the crisis in Ukraine. She argued that when the US walks away, a vacuum would be created only to be filled with trouble (Perr, 2014).

Considering the aftermaths of the Iraqi war, which started during her tenure in office, her comments during the fundraiser raised queries whether she is indeed a true patriot. What gains has the war on Iraq brought to the ordinary American citizen? Is it true that Sadam Hussein was the main threat to the security of the United States? Americans have paid immense price to keep the American military policing Iraq.

While the goal was to ensure lasting peace and the realization of a working democratic government, this concern has not been achieved to date. Should then the US consider intervening in the current Ukraine conflict as Rice suggests? Rice needs to tell Americans for how long the US will police the world at the expense of the American taxpayers’ money.

Rice’s stands on political issues are questionable. She played significant roles in misleading the Americans that Iraq had stocks of weapons of mass destruction. She warned against an oncoming ‘mushroom cloud’ that would destroy all Americans. This outcry convinced Americans on the need to invade Iraq in a bid to eliminate the threat. Unfortunately, until today, no traces of such weapons have been found.

Thus, the Iraqi foreign policy was ill advised. While preventative security surveillance was important as argued before, policies authenticating such surveillance needed to be evidence-based. Rice also condoned enhanced interrogation policy adopted by the Bush’s administration. This aspect raises the query on the capacity of the Rice’s policies to foster exemplary citizenship coupled with moral authority.

This query has attracted interest not only from political scholars, but also from the academic fraternity at large. For instance, a debate arose over Rice’s suitability to speak during the Rutger’s University commencement ceremony considering her roles in misleading the US on the necessity for sending troops to Iraq to destroy WMDs only to return empty handed.

Studying Rice’s policy reveals contradictions of opinions. She benefited from affirmative programs when she was employed at Stanford University. As a provost, she opposed a policy designed to help in making decisions on tenures (Mabry, Bumiller & Kessle, 2008). As a proponent of the Scowcroft’s realism school of thought in her policy making career, Rice welcomed neoconservative agenda after the events of September 11.

However, Mabry, Bumiller, and Kessle (2008) state that when she became the secretary of state, “she jumpstarted multilateral diplomacy with the regimes in Pyongyang and Tehran” (par.2).

At one time, she is a Marxist and at the other, she is an idealist or realist depending on the circumstances of the situation. Mabry (2007) supports this argument by claiming that across her political career, Rice’s bosses interrogated whether she identified herself with their political philosophies.

Her view on the Iraq policy further illustrates her credibility challenges on political opinions and debates. She was an essential element involved in designing of the myth that articulated Iraq-based al-Qaeda Islamists to September 11 attacks. Until 2006, she argued that the Sadam Hussein’s administration had close links to Al Qaeda.

However, three years down the line, she denied this belief by claiming that no one argued that Hussein was involved in September 11 attacks in any way (Mabry, Bumiller & Kessle, 2008). This realization suggests lack of principle and unwillingness to accept failures of a government she served with loyalty.

Conclusion

In her tenure as the US secretary of state and the national security advisor for President Bush, Condoleezza Rice was concerned over the US’ homeland security. One of the pros of her policy inclinations was that she supported terrorism preventive strategies such as increased security surveillance.

This was appropriate to the extent that prevention of terrorism crimes saves lives of hundreds of Americans. However, I do not like her policies for lack of subscription to one school of political thought and her ill-advised foreign policies, especially on Iraq.

References

Adams, N., Nordhaus, T., & Shellenberger, M. (2011). Counterterrorism since 9/11: Evaluating the Efficacy of Controversial Tactics. Public Eye, 26(2), 30-41.

Albanese, M., Jajodia, S., Pugliese, A., & Subrahmanian, S. (2011). Scalable analysis of attack scenarios. ESCORICS, 6879, 416-433.

Bloss, W. (2007). Escalating U.S. Police Surveillance after 9/11: An Examination of Causes and Effects. Surveillance and Society, 4(3), 208-228.

Haggerty, K., & Ericson, R. (2000). The Surveillance Assemblage. British Journal of Sociology, 51(4), 605-622.

Mabry, M. (2007). Condoleezza Rice. Foreign Policy, 1(1), 22-28.

Mabry, M., Bumiller, E., & Kessle, G. (2008). Twice as Good: Condoleezza Rice and Her Path to Power; Condoleezza Rice: An American Life: The Confidante: Condoleezza Rice and the Creation of the Bush Legacy. Web.

Perr, J. (2014). Nobody Could Have Predicted Condi Rice Would Attack Obama Over Ukraine. Web.

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