No Higher Honor: A Memoir of My Years in Washington

by Condoleezza Rice

The state visit of President Mwai Kibaki of Kenya took place the morning that Sanger’s article appeared. As usual, I’d seen the President first thing that day, and he didn’t seem too concerned by the press coverage. But an hour or so later, Andy Card found me as we waited to start the arrival ceremony and said that the President had heard screams of indignation from the Pentagon. “You need to talk to him,” he said.

  That afternoon I went to see the President. “You need to make it right with Don,” he said. “The Pentagon is really spun up.” I said that I hadn’t intended to cause a problem and understood that the coverage was pretty sensational. “See if the Vice President can help,” he said.

  I went to see the Vice President right away, who said he would indeed talk to Don. The next morning at the NSC the President reaffirmed Don’s role in overseeing the CPA and Jerry. It was the right thing to do under the circumstances, but I felt undermined and knew that it would be even more difficult to manage the situation in Iraq. Outside the Situation Room after the meeting, Don said, “What you did really hurt the President.” I held my tongue, resisting the temptation to say, “You don’t think that mess in Iraq is hurting the President?”

  Much to my surprise, though, rather than doubling down on his authority over the CPA, Don took the opportunity to wash his hands of the political situation. In an earlier conversation, Don had told Colin and me that Jerry Bremer did not report to him but to the White House. “That isn’t right, Don,” I insisted. But he didn’t back down. “Look at the President’s directive,” I said. He let the issue drop. Then, after the ISG flap, he told everyone that Bremer now reported to me. This was a ludicrous statement. We needed better communication, but I couldn’t be a substitute for the secretary of defense in overseeing the execution of policy.

  I hadn’t realized how much Don bristled at what he thought to be White House interference in the chain of command. He was unhappy that the President had met with Jerry alone at the time of his appointment. And he was furious that I called Jerry periodically to check in on developments in Iraq. I had no choice, because the difficult relationship between the two men became one of benign neglect by Don. Jerry and I started to talk every day as we began to map out a strategy to return sovereignty to the Iraqi people. Bob Blackwill deployed to Iraq, and the United Nations would soon appoint Lakhdar Brahimi, a seasoned diplomat, to help with that work.

  Frankly, the situation was uncomfortable. I felt stuck with the Iraqi political transition and far deeper into operational matters than I believed wise for a national security advisor. Yet when Bob Blackwill called me in early November to say that Jerry was about to deliver another, revised schedule for the transition, I was very glad I’d intervened.

  ON SUNDAY, November 9, 2003, I decided to attend a Redskins football game with my good friend Gene Washington. The team I liked to root for, the Cleveland Browns, was, as usual, already out of the playoff hunt, and I couldn’t have cared less about the Redskins or the Seahawks. But I did look forward to a relaxing afternoon enjoying my favorite pastime—football.

  A few minutes before halftime, my Secret Service agent said that Bob Blackwill was on the secure phone (we always carried one) from Baghdad. I thought to myself that it was pretty late on a Sunday evening in Iraq, so I was immediately concerned that something was really wrong. “Jerry is about to issue a new set of political guidelines tomorrow,” Bob said.

  “What?” I asked. After the “seven points” debacle, I couldn’t believe my ears. “You have to tell him that the President has to see what he’s going to say,” I said.

  “You’d better tell him,” Bob replied.

  I immediately put in a call to Jerry and said that I thought the President might have a view about the next steps in Iraq. Jerry agreed and said that he’d call him in the morning. “Jerry,” I said, “maybe you’d better get on a plane and come to Washington.” Again he agreed and said that he could arrive by Wednesday.

  The next morning I went to the Oval and told the President about the conversation. “Why did you do that?” the President barked, perhaps still smarting from the ISG flap. “Does Don agree?”

  “Mr. President,” I said, “I wanted to tell you first, and I will call Don. And if you want me to tell Jerry not to come I’ll do that too. But don’t be surprised when the United States has a new plan for Iraq’s political transition that you haven’t seen.” I immediately thought that this might have sounded insubordinate. But the President and I could speak frankly when we were alone.

  He kind of smiled. “Okay, when is he coming?” he asked.

  “Wednesday,” I replied.

  Jerry did come on Wednesday, and the NSC met with him. We agreed to develop a new plan that would satisfy Sistani’s criteria. Eventually it would lead to the negotiation of the Transitional Administrative Law (TAL), which would provide direction for the country in preparation for elections. We would move toward the establishment of an interim government to oversee the transition. Elections would be held in 2005.

  Through the ups and downs of that work, Jerry gently guided the Iraqis to write a political document that became the basis of the Iraqi Constitution. I was at a seder at the home of the Israeli ambassador on the night the TAL was completed. Jerry called me, I called the President, and we all celebrated that important step on the road to Iraqi self-rule. A grand ceremony was planned to launch the TAL on Friday, March 5, 2004. Jerry called that morning, saying that the Iraqis had turned out in droves for the event. Most of the leaders were there with their wives and children, he told me. “Some with several of their wives,” he quipped. But by the time the children’s choir had run out of songs to sing, the Shia leaders still had not arrived. It turned out there had been a last-minute disagreement about the document’s language. Fortunately, the glitch was resolved over the weekend, and the TAL went into force on March 8, 2004.

  This political progress came against a backdrop of increasing violence and a worsening security situation. The insurgents were able to disrupt the reconstruction effort seriously, exploiting vulnerabilities in the electrical grid that we were trying to rebuild. Bob Blackwill had sent a memo to me in September 2003 suggesting that the President deploy 40,000 more troops. I hadn’t discussed it with the President at the time, but I went to him in November to suggest that he raise the possibility with the Pentagon again. He did and received the same answer: we had enough troops on the ground.

  In part everyone was counting on the rebuilt Iraqi security forces to take on some of the burden. But the effort to establish a new Iraqi army was proceeding slowly. Reconstruction of the police forces was even more challenging. The problem was hardly unique to Iraq; the hardest job in a post-conflict environment is to build a reliable police force, free of corruption and competent to handle the full range of security threats from insurgencies to everyday crimes. We had seen the problem in places as different as the Balkans, Afghanistan, and Liberia.

  Under Frank Miller’s leadership, the defense policy arm of the ISG did its best to focus the Pentagon on the security problem but always received the same answer: the security situation will improve when the politics improve. But it’s hard to win the hearts and minds of people when you can’t protect them.

  Still, a lot had been accomplished, and the President wanted to visit the troops in Baghdad to offer our men and women in uniform his gratitude and support. Joe Hagin, the deputy chief of staff, was put in charge of finding a way to get the President safely into and out of Baghdad. The feat Joe managed to pull off was extraordinary.

  On the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, the President went to the ranch for what all but a few aides thought would be a well-deserved holiday weekend. That evening, the President and I climbed into an unmarked wine-colored van and left the ranch. We wore baseball caps, prompting the President to say later that we looked like a couple on the way to shop at Wal-mart. Only First Lady Laura Bush and the head of the President’s Secret Service detail knew where we were headed.

  Because the Secret Serv
ice couldn’t use the usual motorcade procedures, our driver was forced to cope with heavy traffic on Interstate 35. “What is this?” the President asked.

  “A traffic jam,” I answered, thinking that he probably hadn’t seen one in a while. Nonetheless, we made our way to the airstrip in Waco and flew to Andrews Air Force Base, where we’d board Air Force One.

  The flight to Baghdad was surreal. Andy Card, Joe Hagin, and I sat with Dan Bartlett, the President’s communications director, in the staff cabin. There were only four press representatives on board. As we approached Baghdad, Colonel Tillman, Air Force One’s pilot, began to take evasive maneuvers that we could all feel. Then he lowered the lights so that the cabin was dark with the exception of the blue digital time display. It came to me that we should go up to the President’s cabin and offer to pray with him. He is a religious man, and at times like that, religious people pray. There in the darkness on the presidential aircraft, we each offered a short prayer. When we returned to the cabin about ten minutes before landing, I closed my eyes to pray again. In my head I heard a voice say, “and keep them safe from hurt, harm or danger.” They were words that I hadn’t heard since my father died—the words of a prayer that he’d always uttered when someone was leaving on a trip. “Thank you, Daddy,” I said softly to myself.

  We landed at the airport and walked up the stairs to a makeshift dining hall. As we waited outside, I marveled at standing in Saddam Hussein’s airport. Those thoughts were short-lived, though, as the President burst into a room filled with six hundred U.S. soldiers. The place went wild. George W. Bush had a way with the troops. Though the soldiers hadn’t known he was coming, cameras started flying out of pockets all over the place. It was pandemonium.

  I sat with several enlisted personnel and a couple of officers. We talked about their hometowns, how they had come to join the military, and a little about football. When I thanked them for their service, they returned the sentiment. It was a wonderful, reaffirming time for me—for all of us.

  After two hours or so, we boarded Air Force One again and took off. About that time, news stations started reporting that the President of the United States had made a surprise visit to Baghdad.

  Non-proliferation Breakthrough

  DESPITE THE TRIALS and tribulations in Iraq, we registered some gains. For instance, the overthrow of Saddam Hussein was beginning to have a salutary effect on other parts of the non-proliferation agenda.

  We’d been trying for some time to get the Chinese to play a more active role in reining in the North Korean nuclear program. The President had been right that only Beijing had enough leverage to convince Kim Jong-il to abandon his aggressive stance toward the international community. Much of the problem with the Agreed Framework was that it had left the United States negotiating bilaterally with the North Koreans, allowing Pyongyang to play the South Koreans, the Europeans, and the Chinese off of us by seeking concessions from each party individually.

  Now we had a different idea. Rather than the bilateral negotiations with the North that were being urged on us by our allies, we proposed a six-party framework with China in the chair. Beijing had initially resisted the idea when Colin proposed it in March 2003. President Bush had been so frustrated with the Chinese that he’d raised the ante in a phone call with Chinese President Ziang Jemin. Before getting on the call, he had asked what more he could say to move Beijing. I suggested that he raise the specter, ever so gently, of a military option against North Korea. He liked the idea, and when Ziang began to recite the timeworn mantra about the need for the United States to show more flexibility with the North, the President stopped him. A bit more directly than I’d expected, he told Ziang that he was under a lot of pressure from hard-liners to use military force and added, on his own, that one also couldn’t rule out a nuclear Japan if the North remained unconstrained.

  We’ll probably never know what role that conversation—or the action in Iraq—played in the obvious redirection of Chinese strategy toward the North Korean nuclear problem. By the summer Beijing had agreed to the establishment of the Six-Party Talks. That allowed us to unify our policy approach with our allies Japan and South Korea and put pressure on China to take an active role in solving the problem. We invited Russia to join as well, given its proximity to North Korea and its long-standing ties with Pyongyang. The forum met for the first time in Beijing in late August 2003.

  Even more startling developments were emerging in Libya. In the spring of 2003 we heard through the British that Muammar Qaddafi wanted to open negotiations with the United States and the United Kingdom, with the carrot being an end to Libya’s WMD programs. At first we didn’t put much faith in the overture but we ultimately decided to send a joint CIA/MI5 team to assess the situation. It returned with a positive report: Qaddafi was serious.

  The negotiations had to be conducted in absolute secrecy; any breach might lead the Libyan dictator to abandon the effort. So without the knowledge of most of the government, Bob Joseph from the NSC and William Ehrman and David Landsman from the United Kingdom, together with representatives from the intelligence agencies, led the negotiations with the Libyans. Bob is as tough and skeptical a conservative as one can imagine. So when he told me that we could get the deal done, I realized that we were going to achieve an incredible breakthrough. Nigel Sheinwald, who’d replaced David Manning in Tony Blair’s office, and I oversaw the effort on behalf of our bosses.

  As we were getting close to agreement, though, the Libyans started to balk at certain demands for transparency in the destruction of their WMD. It looked as if the whole effort was unraveling as Tripoli started to deny the existence of programs to which it had already admitted. Then we got a break: a ship from Malaysia carrying a suspicious cargo bound for Libya was stopped by German and Italian authorities and diverted for inspection. On board were five large shipping containers labeled “used machine parts” later determined to have been carrying thousands of centrifuge components—including some emanating from the A. Q. Kahn network. Exposed in the midst of negotiations, the Libyans retreated from their hard-line stance and an agreement was back within reach.

  The successful interdiction had been the result of the President’s Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI). Announced the previous May in Poland, the PSI created a network of countries that shared intelligence information concerning suspicious air, sea, and land shipments. If the intelligence was strong enough, a country might agree to inspect the cargo in question or even deny overflight rights to a suspected trafficker. The PSI had no secretariat, no building, and no bureaucracy. It was a virtual institution and had been an unsung example of cooperation in the assault on proliferation worldwide. It was also an example of a coalition of the willing. The UN might have debated the details of such an arrangement for years. But the informality and flexibility of the PSI made it possible for countries as disparate as Russia and Japan, Australia and Saudi Arabia, to be members.

  The Libyan affair also helped us understand better how the shadowy networks of proliferation were interacting with rogue regimes. The A. Q. Khan ring, about which we’d learned in 2001, was a big part of the story. The CIA, with the cooperation of several countries, would soon arrest key members of the network, and in 2004 A. Q. Khan himself would be put under house arrest in Pakistan. Though there would be many ups and downs with Musharraf about the nuclear scientist’s fate, we were pretty certain that he was no longer plying his wares to rogue regimes. (In fact, he would be released in 2009.)

  On December 19 we were set finally to tell the world about Libya’s disarmament. That would show that dictators could be persuaded or perhaps coerced to give up their weapons of mass destruction. The announcement would be made by the Libyan foreign minister and Colonel Qaddafi, and then welcomed by President Bush and Prime Minister Blair.

  As the day dragged on, Nigel and I had to manage the anxiety of our respective bosses, who were waiting to tell the world what had transpired. It was getting quite late in Britain, so we decided
to have the prime minister go first. The President would still have time to catch the evening news feed in the United States. Nigel had an open line to U.K. sources in Libya, but there was nothing to report. As it turned out, there was an important soccer match underway in Libya that night and the “Brother Leader” was taking his time. Finally, the U.K. source read the Libyan statements to Nigel, who was on the phone with me.

  “Well?” I asked.

  “Good enough,” he replied. Though Qaddafi’s statement rambled on about a green revolution (Islamic, not environmental), the Libyan foreign minister’s statement satisfied the explicit demands of the agreement and we had what we needed. Muammar Qaddafi would give up his WMD and seek to end Libya’s isolation from the international community. These dangerous weapons would travel over 5,000 miles from Tripoli to Tennessee, where they would be dismantled at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

  The Saturday before the Libyan announcement, I’d called in Dan Bartlett to tell him about the coming good news. I was surprised when he looked disappointed. “I thought you were going to tell me that we had found Saddam,” he said. “That will be next week,” I said in jest. The truth is, I was more than a little annoyed that Dan did not seem to understand the importance of what we’d achieved.

  ONE WEEK after that comment, I was preparing for the thirty or so friends who were coming to my house for a Christmas party and carol singing on Sunday, December 12. Just before the revelers were to arrive, I got a call from the President. “Don just called,” he said. “The military thinks they’ve got Saddam.”

  Don and Steve were among the guests, and we huddled for a moment in the kitchen out of earshot of the others. Don said that he didn’t want to say anything until they could get some more positive identification of the man, who’d been found hiding in a spider hole at a farmhouse outside Tikrit. We carried on singing, but I certainly had a hard time concentrating on the Christmas cheer. I’m sure the others did too.