No Higher Honor: A Memoir of My Years in Washington

by Condoleezza Rice

  I called Siniora. “I assume I shouldn’t come,” I said to him.

  “It’s best if you don’t,” he answered. “This has got to stop. It has got to stop!” he shouted into the phone.

  “Fouad, I’m so sorry,” I began. But he was just silent. I hung up and asked to see Olmert, who agreed to meet me within an hour. I was furious at Peretz. Now I would have to tell the press that I had sat through a meeting with the Israeli defense minister not knowing that the IDF had killed numerous Lebanese civilians in an attack. The press was more interested, though, in the fact that I’d canceled my return trip to Lebanon: “Does this mean that the United States has lost its ability to broker a deal?” I kept my comments short—words of condolence to the Lebanese and a promise to find an end to the war. I didn’t address the implication in the question that I’d lost the moral high ground by supporting the Israelis too long. But when I saw Olmert, I was more direct. “Get it over with,” I said. “After today, you have no ground to stand on. And I’m not going to let the United States go down with you.” We quickly negotiated a forty-eight-hour halt on air strikes for humanitarian purposes. As I was taking off for the United States, the fragility of the brief cessation was clear; the IDF had reduced its air activity, but fighting continued. Nonetheless, the half measure gave a little breathing space to relief workers to replenish the dwindling supplies of food and medicine.

  Upon my return I went immediately to the White House to meet with the President. We reviewed the situation and the diminishing international support for our position. He too was very worried that the Siniora government might be in real danger of collapsing. “They’re caught between a rock and a hard place. People are questioning whether America can be counted on to help its Lebanese friends,” I said. The President agreed to call Olmert and impress upon the Israelis the urgency of finishing the operation quickly.

  The problem was that the Israelis didn’t really have a firm grasp on their strategic objectives. They kept saying that they wanted to damage Hezbollah, but they understood that they wouldn’t succeed in destroying the terrorist organization. They wanted to punish Hezbollah, but they admitted that they were now doing more damage to Lebanon—and potential friends—than to the terrorists. They kept threatening to launch a major ground offensive, but they didn’t want to reoccupy Lebanese territory from which they’d withdrawn in 2000. Since they didn’t know what they were trying to achieve, they didn’t know when they’d achieve it. A full independent review of Israeli decision making (the Winograd Commission Report) would later conclude that the war had been badly managed from a political-military point of view. Israel had gone to war with uncertain objectives. And we were paying the price.

  We decided to work with France and the United Nations Security Council to draft a resolution that would end the war. I couldn’t wait any longer for the Israelis to determine what they were trying to do. Steve would work directly with the Élysée Palace through the foreign policy advisor to President Chirac. I would work with the Lebanese, the Israelis, and the United Nations.

  The elements of the agreement would be the following: the entry of the Lebanese army into the South so that it controlled the entire country; a beefed-up UN peacekeeping force under Chapter VII with real teeth to replace UNIFIL so that the IDF could withdraw; a bordermonitoring system to close off the arms flow across the Syrian land border and at sea so that the Israeli blockade could be lifted; and some wording that promised to revisit the Shebaa Farms question. A ceasefire would come into effect upon deployment of the security forces.

  For the next week, we attempted to get agreement on these basic points. Not surprisingly, Siniora was simultaneously negotiating with me and with the various factions in his government. Olmert had splits in his coalition too. Hawkish elements in Jerusalem, particularly in the military, wanted to keep the war going. Some in the IDF were pushing to expand operations, despite the uneven success thus far. I knew, though, that Tzipi Livni and Olmert were looking for a way out of the predicament. I just needed to help them find it.

  The biggest challenge was to find a formula that both Siniora and Olmert could accept on the peacekeeping force. With our concurrence, Olmert wanted a force with a robust mandate under Chapter VII of the UN Charter, which would authorize it to take military action. The Israelis felt it important that their withdrawal not be followed by Hezbollah’s swift rearmament, and authorizing the peacekeeping force under Chapter VII would have enabled it to prevent that and better assist the Lebanese army to reassert its authority. Chapter VII was a nonstarter for Siniora and the other Lebanese parties, who felt that a force with such a mandate would spark fighting and ultimately threaten civil war. The Lebanese demanded a Chapter VI mandate, which, unlike a Chapter VII resolution, would limit the force to using peaceful means. Ultimately we achieved a compromise that both parties could accept—an expanded UNIFIL force, operating under Chapter VI but with a mandate to “take all necessary action” to ensure southern Lebanon would not be used for hostile purposes.

  During negotiations with the parties, our friends in Paris suddenly dropped from sight. I cannot to this day explain what happened, but their active efforts to find a solution just ceased. We suspected that Chirac’s civilian advisors were telling him Hezbollah would attack any French peacekeepers in Lebanon. Therefore France had wanted a ceasefire and a peacekeeping force only after all of the political issues were settled—including a mechanism to deal with Shebaa Farms. Not even Siniora was suggesting that there had to be a political agreement before a ceasefire—that wasn’t going to happen. We toyed with the idea of two resolutions, one to end the war and then one to deal with the politics. The French tried to reverse the order. After several days they just stopped working toward a deal. Kofi Annan took up the slack, becoming my negotiating partner in a way that I could never have imagined given his anger at the Israelis that day in Rome. Because he could also talk to the Syrians—warning Damascus not to stand in the way of an agreement—his work was essential.

  The focus of the negotiations was now the UN with John Bolton working toward a resolution. Each night I would talk with John as his day ended in New York, and I’d go home to a flurry of phone calls with the parties in the region to move the ball forward. The next morning we’d start again, but, as Nick Burns said, it felt like Groundhog Day. I’d go to bed thinking we had an agreement only to wake up to find that something had unraveled overnight. David Welch kept helicoptering back and forth between Israel and Lebanon.

  The President was in Crawford, and he asked me to join him there so that we could work together on Lebanon. I arrived on August 5 and briefed him on where things stood. The next morning, we had a regularly scheduled NSC meeting by videoconference. The President asked me to bring everyone up to date, which I did. I was stunned when the Vice President said in reply that we shouldn’t be seeking a resolution. “We need to let the Israelis finish the job,” he said. I scribbled a note to the President. “Where has he been for the last two weeks?” The President didn’t respond. The Vice President continued with a soliloquy that revealed his ex parte (from my point of view) conversations with the Israelis. I was furious. Had he been negotiating with some people within the Israeli government behind my back and suggesting that the United States might support an extension of the war? It was quite unlike the Vice President, whom I’d come to know as straightforward even when we didn’t agree. It occurred to me that this might have been another “staff-driven” view, but it was unacceptable.

  When he finished, I explained patiently that I had—along with Steve Hadley—been working with the Israelis and the Lebanese on terms for a ceasefire. We were getting close and would likely go to the United Nations to vote on a resolution in a few days. There could be no turning back now. And our allies in Lebanon were in danger of collapse. If the NSC principals felt differently, I had to know.

  The Vice President repeated his view that the war should continue. “Do that, and you are dead in the Middle East,” I said to th
e President—loud enough for others to hear. The President called a halt to the meeting and said he would get back to everyone. I followed him out of the videoconference room. “I’ve been out there negotiating a resolution, and now we don’t want one?”

  By the next morning the President had produced—in his own hand—a document about the Middle East. The essence of the argument was that too much was at stake to allow the war to continue—including our posture in Iraq and his desire for a push toward Palestinian statehood. He noted insightfully that we couldn’t abandon the democratic forces and their foothold in Lebanon and sustain the Freedom Agenda. With that bit of internal discord resolved, I returned to Washington to push for a ceasefire.

  The ups and downs continued, but by Wednesday evening, John Bolton thought he had an agreement on the language. Then there was another disruption: the Arab League decided to send its foreign ministers to Washington to demand a ceasefire. “It’s gone pretty sour here all of a sudden,” John reported from New York. “They want to wait for the Arabs to get here.” I needed that like a hole in the head because it would mean days of grandstanding while those who wanted to expand the operation gained ground in Tel Aviv.

  After a long day on the phone with Kofi trying to nail down support of the parties for the resolution, Margaret Beckett, the British foreign minister, called. “I’m coming to New York,” she said. “Tony has decided that it’s time to go to the UN, particularly since the Arabs are going.”

  “Margaret, I’m worried that we’ll just sit there and look stupid if the resolution isn’t ready,” I said.

  “I can look stupid in London, or I can look stupid in New York,” she replied. “I guess I’d just as soon look stupid at the UN.” I agreed to meet her in New York on Friday to make a last push.

  By the time I arrived in New York, we’d nailed down almost all elements of the resolution. David Welch was in Lebanon sitting with Siniora when I arrived in my suite at the Waldorf. Steve was working furiously with the Israelis, solving yet another overnight problem. An earlier version of a resolution draft that didn’t reflect Tel Aviv’s changes had somehow ended up on Olmert’s desk. Shalom Turgeman, Olmert’s diplomatic advisor, had called Steve, furious that the United States was putting on the table a solution that Israel couldn’t support. Steve made certain that they had the right version of the resolution. Only several years later did I learn that John Bolton had been sharing information with the Israelis through their UN ambassador without permission to do so. That practice had backfired, as the Israeli ambassador was one step behind the discussions between the White House and the prime minister’s office.

  As John was in the Security Council chamber preparing to present the resolution at three o’clock, I suddenly saw a television report that threw everything into a tailspin. Israeli tanks were crossing deeper into Lebanon; the IDF had begun a ground invasion moments before the UN vote.

  I’d been on the phone with David Welch and Siniora, finishing last-minute details, when the news report caught my attention. “Get Tzipi on the phone!” I yelled to Liz Lineberry, who was standing nearby. When I heard Tzipi’s voice, I just couldn’t contain my anger. “What are you doing?” I demanded. I could immediately tell that she really wasn’t sure of the answer to that question. It occurred to me that the IDF might have jumped the gun, launching the escalation of the war that some in the defense establishment had favored. Maybe the Israelis were trying to send a message that time for diplomacy was running out. It was a pretty dramatic way to get our attention.

  I called Steve and asked him to get hold of Olmert’s office, and then I phoned Olmert himself. He said something about having a stronger position from which to begin the ceasefire. It didn’t really make sense. I decided on the spot to keep pushing through to the resolution. “Tell John to tap-dance for a few minutes,” I said to Brian, who immediately told Bolton to stall in the chamber. Then, with the prime minister of Lebanon on one phone and the prime minister of Israel on the other, I nailed down the final wording. Just before entering the room, Kofi called me into his office. “How much time will the Israelis need before they begin to withdraw?” I called Olmert again, and we settled on the ceasefire taking effect within forty-eight hours.

  After John presented the ceasefire resolution that we’d negotiated, I entered the chamber and cast the U.S. vote in favor of it. UN Security Council Resolution 1701 passed unanimously on August 11. Siniora had angry words for Israel, but the most recent Lebanese war was about to end—just about a month to the day after it had begun.

  That night on the plane I allowed myself to sip a glass of white wine, something I hadn’t done in weeks due to the round-the-clock negotiations. I didn’t really feel a sense of satisfaction, but I did feel relief. The Israelis would withdraw, capable security forces would come in, and Fouad Siniora’s government had survived. Somehow we’d threaded the needle and protected the interests of both our friends. On Sunday morning I awoke to a Washington Post opinion piece. “The Middle East Is Condi’s Now,” it was titled. “In the wake of the devastating war in Lebanon, the secretary of state will have to make sense of the crumbling order in the Middle East.” That’s absolutely right, I thought. I have to, and somehow I will.

  Several days later, I left for the Greenbrier, where I spent most of the day on the telephone, working to raise troop contributions for the new peacekeeping forces. It’s always hard to assemble those forces, particularly since the United States has long been reluctant to put substantial forces into a UN operation that it does not dominate. And in the case of Lebanon, the U.S. military would have been an inviting target, as it was when the marine barracks there were bombed in 1983. But thanks largely to the Italians, the “new” UNIFIL came into being. The French, still sulking, had refused to lead the mission until the Italians (led by, once again, my friend D’Alema) said that they would. Then Paris relented and agreed to command, with Italy, Spain, and Turkey providing the bulk of the forces.

  Resolution 1701 was then and still remains controversial, particularly among conservative commentators and certain “friends” of Israel. Indeed, though it ended the war, it didn’t solve all of the security problems in Lebanon. We were never able to get a practical solution to the Syrian land-border issue. Siniora was simply afraid to put international forces on the border and directly challenge Syria. Until the day I left office, I continued to look for a solution, including deploying technical personnel from Germany who could quietly monitor the border. Nothing really worked. As a result, Hezbollah continued to receive arms—albeit at a reduced rate—in direct contravention of Resolution 1701.

  The Winograd Commission said, however, that the resolution was an “achievement” for Israel. The Lebanese army did deploy to the South, and Hezbollah was weakened by the reality and perception of displacement from its area of influence by the national forces. The Lebanese people cheered when, for the first time in thirty years, the national army entered the South. And UNIFIL has been a capable force in keeping the peace.

  So, though it wasn’t a perfect solution, UNSCR 1701 was an important victory for Siniora, who delivered his people from the horrors of a war that he didn’t start. Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah’s leader, tried to claim victory. But the terrorist organization had achieved nothing but displaced people, a weakening of its own infrastructure, and the entry of the Lebanese army and an international force where its fighters had once roamed. Later Nasrallah would admit that he wouldn’t have started the war had he been able to predict the Israeli reaction and the conflict’s aftermath.

  The Israelis would complain bitterly about the failure to secure the land border with Syria, and some hawkish elements would suggest that they should have continued the war. But we bailed Tel Aviv out of a poorly executed response to an admittedly unprovoked attack. Olmert and Livni have at least had the decency to acknowledge that the diplomatic solution was delivered just in time.

  And unlike in the ceasefire of 1996, Damascus was a bystander, surprisingly kept in ch
eck by Kofi Annan’s warnings to stay out of the way and its weakened position given its troop withdrawal in 2005. When Secretary of State Warren Christopher had negotiated the resolution to the previous outbreak of hostilities in 1996, he’d been “protected” by Syrian forces that lined the streets of Beirut—their dominance on full display. Chris, as he was known, had made more trips to Damascus than he had to Beirut, and the final agreement had been between Syria and Israel. Now, in 2006, one would have been naive to assume that Syria had no influence. Yet, having the Lebanese negotiate on their own behalf was a big step forward in the long saga toward the reestablishment of Lebanese sovereignty. The United States of America had salvaged a lot from the flames of Israel’s war with Hezbollah.

  36

  REVISING THE FRAMEWORK FOR THE WAR ON TERROR

  THE MONTH-LONG WAR in Lebanon had demanded my undivided attention. But problems were piling up elsewhere: there were the deteriorating situation in Iraq; North Korea’s continuing intransigence, which was now taking the form of a possible nuclear test; and the need to advance the Palestinian-Israeli negotiations. Most immediately pressing, however, was the need to respond to those who were challenging our policies concerning detainees and to make the legal framework for the war on terror as sturdy as possible.

  In late June of 2006 the Supreme Court ruled in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld that the military commissions system to try detainees was inadequate for failing to guarantee certain judicial protections that the Court argued were afforded to detainees by domestic and international law, such as the right to appear at trial and the admissibility of certain kinds of evidence. The Court had also concluded, contrary to the legal opinions of Justice Department lawyers, that the provision known as Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions applied to our conflict with al Qaeda and that al Qaeda members were entitled to certain minimal guarantees contained in that provision.