No Higher Honor: A Memoir of My Years in Washington

by Condoleezza Rice

  Another factor that helped bring the department on board was the President’s request for a huge increase in the State Department’s budget to support the needs of transformational diplomacy as well as the surge. The increase would fund 254 new positions for critical countries such as India, China, Indonesia, and Lebanon, as well as 57 new positions in the Office of the Coordinator for Reconstruction and Stabilization so that we could rapidly deploy our civilian capacity to respond to crises and stabilize missions overseas. Additionally, the request provided for $6 billion in supplemental funding for Afghanistan, Iraq, and Lebanon.

  The initial discussions with the Office of Management and Budget hadn’t been very promising; it is the OMB director’s job to “green-eyeshade” government spending. But we were at war, and though everyone talked about the importance of civilians in the fight, no one wanted to fund them. I was tired of hearing from the Pentagon that State wasn’t doing its job, and I was grateful to Bob Gates when he called for greater foreign affairs funding in a much-admired speech around that time.

  The department was seriously stretched—in terms of both operations and foreign-assistance funding—to help the multiplying newly democratic states dependent on America. I’d pledged $770 million at a Paris Donors’ Conference for Lebanon. It was imperative that we support Prime Minister Fouad Siniora’s government, which was still trying to rebuild from the war and hold militant forces at bay. A similar pledge of $10.6 billion to Afghanistan at a NATO ministerial meeting was necessitated by growing evidence of the Taliban’s resurgence. When I started adding those commitments to what we were already dedicating to Iraq, I realized how stretched we were.

  I never believed, though, that the entire bill should fall on the U.S. government. Thanks to the innovative work of Dina Powell, the Egyptian American assistant secretary for educational and cultural affairs, who was working under Karen Hughes, we pioneered public-private partnerships in both Lebanon and later in the Palestinian territories. The former brought together such high-level executives as Craig Barrett from Intel, John Chambers from Cisco Systems, Jay Collins from Citigroup, and the Lebanese businessman Yousif Ghafari to fund reconstruction and community service projects throughout the country. Siniora needed an answer, particularly in the Shia South, to the largesse Hezbollah bestowed on the population. The business community was often quicker and more efficient at providing help than our government could ever be.

  We launched a similar effort with the Palestinians later that year. I called Walter Isaacson of the Aspen Institute and invited him to come over. “Walter, how would you like to do something for peace?” I asked. He readily agreed and organized the U.S.-Palestinian Partnership, an association of private business and foundation leaders such as Ziad Asali and Jean Case. Their early efforts helped raise more than $1.4 billion in investment commitments to help Salam Fayyad make the West Bank economically prosperous and secure.

  Such efforts, however, could only augment, not supplant, U.S. government assistance. When I got the OMB’s calculation of how much funding the State Department merited, I called my friend Rob Portman, the OMB director, and said that I would appeal. He understood fully; it was nothing personal between us. The Vice President, who oversaw the appellate process on behalf of the President, was very sympathetic and assured me that he would help make the case for adequate funding. We also changed the designation of the State Department to a “national security agency,” placing it in the same category as the Departments of Defense and Homeland Security. As it concerned the budget, the distinction meant little, but it sent a signal that diplomacy was an equal partner in the conduct of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and essential to the success of the Freedom Agenda.

  The additional funding and the emphasis on the need for a civilian surge caused me to strengthen even further the Provincial Reconstruction Teams, doubling the number of PRTs in Iraq and hiring about three hundred civilians to carry out reconstruction tasks. The PRTs operated far from the fortified Green Zone in Baghdad. They merged diplomats, aid workers, and military personnel in units that could carry out counterinsurgency doctrine as it was intended. There was little distinction between war and peace. Rather, the teams were responsible for governance and reconstruction in areas that were far from peaceful and where security was always in question. Obviously, it was dangerous work.

  The civilians in the PRTs, however, needed to have their protection seamlessly integrated into the functioning of the combined civilian and military unit. I learned that this had caused a big turf war between State and the Pentagon about who would be in command of PRT personnel. “Well, of course it will be the brigade commander,” I told my chief of staff, Brian Gunderson, when he said that our folks were looking for guidance.

  “The embassy objects,” he said, noting that the ambassador didn’t want “his people” reporting to someone else.

  “Well, they’re my people,” I told Brian, “and they’ll report to the brigade commander. Ask them if they have any other ideas about how to stay safe since none of them carry guns.” That ended the controversy, and the integrated teams of diplomats, aid workers, and military personnel became one of the really successful experiments of the Iraq war.

  Very often, particularly in wartime, necessity is the mother of invention. Most people who served in PRTs found them rewarding and effective. And the President, who had enormous respect for what the military was doing in Iraq and Afghanistan, gained a new appreciation for what diplomats could do, too. Sometimes in person but often by video, he encountered stories of these civilian PRT “veterans,” people in their fifties and sixties who were risking life and limb far from the comforts of embassies and capitals.

  As an influx of civilians began deploying to Iraq, we became increasingly reliant on contracted security forces to guard and transport diplomats and aid workers around the country safely. There simply weren’t enough soldiers to carry out those tasks, and frankly, the military’s job was really to fight insurgents, not protect American civilians. The State Department’s Diplomatic Security bureau is in charge of protecting the secretary of state and is also dedicated to the protection of the embassy. “DS,” as it is known in the department, is enormously capable but small. Though I increased the number of DS special agents by more than two hundred, there was simply no way that the security arm of the Foreign Service could protect the large contingent of civilians in the war zones of Iraq and Afghanistan. When officers could be spared, they were largely engaged in protecting high-ranking officials and foreign dignitaries. Our only choice was to contract security out.

  For the most part the arrangement worked well. But we learned the hard way that there were real liabilities to the system. One morning in September I woke up to reports that personnel working for Blackwater USA—at that time our largest source of private security contractors in Iraq—had opened fire in a Baghdad square. Although it was unclear how the shooting had started, seventeen civilians had been killed in the incident. Shortly after I heard the news, I walked into the Oval Office for a scheduled meeting with the President. “You look like you’ve lost your last friend,” he said. I told him about the Blackwater incident and said it was big trouble. It was. The Iraqis began demanding that Blackwater leave the country, and there were hearings and numerous investigations into the shooting. I tried to stem the crisis by testifying on the subject before Congress, conducting internal reviews of how we manage our contractors and making major adjustments to the way they were overseen. I ordered DS to deploy dozens of additional agents to accompany Blackwater security details moving through Iraq. Defense Secretary Bob Gates and I even agreed to place armed contractors that operated in the battlefield under the supervision of the Pentagon. And I asked the fine officer who headed the department’s Diplomatic Security bureau to resign.

  As our forces begin withdrawing from Iraq and Afghanistan, the United States will likely grow even more dependent on those forces. In June 2011 the State Department signaled that it would spend close to $3 bil
lion on private security contractors to protect its diplomats in Iraq after the U.S. military completed its drawdown in the country at the end of the year. Many experts question whether we should be relying on these contractors, particularly as they undertake missions that have been traditionally reserved for our military or other governmental entities. These are valid concerns, many of which I share. But unless we increase the number of personnel within the government to provide this capacity in-house, we will have to rely on these forces, at least in the short term. In a tough budgetary environment that isn’t a realistic option. This does not negate the need for enhanced oversight of and accountability for these contractors. Both State and Defense will need to ensure that the rules under which they operate, particularly those pertaining to how they use force, are more closely aligned with those of our military, without compromising the quality of security they provide for our diplomats.

  I BEGAN TO SENSE that in the corridors of the Pentagon and among congressional hawks, complaints about how State was not pulling its weight in the fight were dissipating. Since becoming secretary, I’d fiercely defended the Foreign Service against the Pentagon and Congress, and, thankfully, our efforts seemed to be paying off.

  There were always exceptions, though. I’ll never forget the day John McCain came to see me to complain about the Department’s role in Iraq. John and I are old friends, and it started off with civility. But all of a sudden he was yelling and red in the face. “We’re about to lose the second war in my lifetime, and State isn’t in the fight!”

  I let him finish his tirade because I knew that he could be emotional. And then I led him through the changes we’d made and encouraged him to meet Ryan Crocker, who’d just become the U.S. ambassador in Iraq. Ryan would have everything he needed, I told John, including a team of people with ambassador-level experience working for him. “John, you know that no one is more dedicated to winning in Iraq than I am,” I said.

  “I know,” he replied quietly.

  He’s just a patriot who has given a lot and demands the same, I thought. It’s okay. Don’t return fire with fire. Our meeting ended amicably.

  THE ROLE of diplomacy in support of the Iraq effort continued to grow, demanding more and more time. The remaining tensions with friends and allies who had opposed the war initially had been largely overcome, replaced by a general sense of alarm at the war’s disastrous course. Some of our original partners had already left—Spain due to the election of the leftist government of Prime Minister José Luis Zapatero, Italy because it simply couldn’t maintain domestic support for the war any longer. In February 2007 Great Britain announced a drawdown of about 1,600 of its 7,100 troops. But while domestic pressures on our coalition partners to get out were growing, recriminations about how we had gotten into Iraq were rarely heard. Now we were all united in trying to find a way to leave a stable country behind.

  In that regard, there was a collective sigh of relief when I announced U.S. support for an Iraqi-led conference that would solicit input from its neighbors about how to stabilize the country. Frankly, I didn’t expect much of Syria, and I was sure that Iran had no intention of helping, but at least a gathering would put some international pressure on them to stop making trouble. We were taking a tougher line toward Tehran with the arrests of their personnel in Iraq and the passage of a second round of sanctions in the United Nations concerning Iran’s nuclear program.

  Thus in March, David Satterfield, my able coordinator for Iraq, and Zal Khalilzad, our outgoing ambassador to Iraq who would be assuming our top diplomatic post at the United Nations, joined Iraq’s neighbors, including Iran and Syria, at a conference in Baghdad. There was a brief “pull-aside” between our folks and the Iranian representatives. It was the first face-to-face meeting in three years. “Just don’t give them anything to crow about, Zal,” I’d told the ambassador. I needn’t have worried. The Iranians were so nervous to be in the presence of Americans that they read their talking points verbatim, barely made eye contact, and made quick work of the whole thing. Ryan Crocker would meet in Baghdad with his counterpart. The meeting was equally unproductive.

  The scene wasn’t terribly different when I attended the ministerlevel meeting for Iraq’s neighbors, the Iraq Compact Conference, held in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt. Most of the news coverage from the event focused on my discussions with the Syrian foreign minister. Our encounter would be the highest-level contact Washington had had with Damascus since we had recalled our ambassador in 2005. I was late for the prearranged meeting, having been delayed by another meeting. When I got there, the rotund Walid Muallem, who looked a little like an Arab version of Ariel Sharon, was relieved that I’d come. “I thought you might not show up,” he said.

  “Why would I do that?” I answered. That was perhaps the most momentous part of our discussion. I delivered my points about Syria’s interference in Lebanon and its failure to stop terrorists in their country from crossing their border into Iraq.

  “It’s hard to stop them,” he said, but I was having none of it.

  “They’re coming through Damascus airport,” I countered. The whole exchange reminded me of something an Arab minister had said when I asked about the prospects for cooperation with Syria: “You can’t buy the Syrians. You might be able to rent them, though. The only problem is, you never know how long they’ll stay rented.” I decided then and there that cooperation with Damascus was a one-way street. The siren song of engagement with the Syrians has attracted many U.S. diplomats. I lost my appetite for any such effort that day in Sharm after talking to Muallem.

  There were no preset plans for me to meet my Iranian counterpart, Manouchehr Mottaki, who was something of a cipher in any case with no real authority to do anything. But when I arrived at lunch, I noticed that the Egyptian foreign minister—my buddy Ahmed Aboul Gheit—had placed the Iranian in my direct line of sight. Only the Saudi foreign minister sat between us. “Did you say hello to Condi?” Ahmed asked with a twinkle in his eye. “Or did you mean her too, when you said, ‘Peace be upon you’?” The Iraqi, the Saudi, and others in earshot were chuckling, but Mottaki looked stricken. “Hello,” I said to get the poor guy off the hook. He nodded and went back to his lunch.

  That evening Ahmed tried again. The Egyptians had planned an elaborate dinner by the sea. I arrived a little late because I had a number of press interviews that ran long. When I got to the table, there was an empty chair next to me, which Ahmed had reserved for the Iranian. Mottaki left before I got to the dinner, however, complaining that he was offended by the entertainment, a Ukrainian violinist wearing a rather revealing red dress. Sean McCormack quipped to the press that it was unclear whether Mottaki had been fearful of the woman in the red dress or the woman in the black pantsuit, my chosen apparel for the evening.

  So I never had a real conversation with my Iranian counterpart. After a while I found it useful to tweak him in my press conferences, offering to meet him anywhere, anytime, to talk about anything—if Iran would just suspend its nuclear program. That never happened, but the offer helped me keep the P5+1 united and the Iranians isolated.

  It was unfortunate that the nature of the regime made it impossible to pursue rapprochement with Iran. The Iranian people are among the most pro-American in the region—and, ironically, the most supportive of the Freedom Agenda. Anecdote after anecdote from those who visited Iran made this point. Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer related how he attended a meeting at the University of Tehran, only to be confronted by the students for not speaking clearly about democracy “like George W. Bush.” My advisor at State Jared Cohen found that when people in Iran learned he was American, he rarely had to pay for anything. And my Stanford colleague William Perry, a former secretary of defense, was once asked during a visit there if he personally knew me. “Yes, I do,” he said, to which the individual explained how much he admired me. It turned out that the U.S. secretary of state was popular for confronting the regime.

  We thus tried to reach out to th
e Iranian people. In 2006 I requested $75 million in supplemental funding to support our democracy and cultural diplomacy programs in Iran. I told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that during the 1970s about 200,000 Iranians had studied in the United States; by 2006 that figure had fallen to 2,000. The requested funding would be used to increase our “exchanges” with Iranian professionals and students as well as improve our radio broadcasting service to enhance the prospects for true democracy in the country. “I’ve read that it is forbidden in some quarters to play Beethoven and Mozart in Tehran,” I told the senators. “We hope that Iranians can play it in New York or in Los Angeles.” I even supported a U.S. wrestling team traveling to compete in a tournament in Tehran. But there were U.S. flags in the stadium, and the regime eventually clamped down on “sports diplomacy.”

  In May 2007 a group of young Iranian artists came to the United States to display their work at the Meridian International Center in Washington, D.C. I addressed the group and made some remarks to the press, avoiding any political messages that might make it difficult for our guests. When we suggested a reciprocal visit for American artists, though, the regime refused. The mullahs no doubt understood how popular the United States and Americans were—and it terrified them.

  41

  A NEW APPROACH TO LATIN AMERICA

  IN FACT, WE HAD many major foreign policy initiatives under way, but in the atmosphere created by Iraq, it was difficult to get attention for them. By the beginning of 2007, we’d begun to significantly restructure our approach to Latin America. While reactionary leaders such as Hugo Chávez in Venezuela, Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua, and the ever-difficult Kirchners in Argentina were grabbing headlines, the region was making considerable progress toward democratic consolidation and free-market reforms.