Rice takes over State Department
With a smile and a wave, Condoleezza Rice took over as America's 66th Secretary of State today to confront an agenda laden with difficult and potentially explosive foreign policy problems.
At the very top is a grinding war in Iraq that has taken the lives of more than 1,400 US troops.
Echoing President Bush's inaugural theme, she told a large gathering of State Department employees in Washington: "America will stand for freedom and for liberty. It's great to be here."
"My door will be open," she said.
During Senate confirmation hearings last week in which she was peppered with 390 oral and written questions, Rice was strongly challenged on Iraq and the war.
She gave no indication that she would recommend any change in US strategy designed to overcome insurgents and steer Iraq toward democracy.
However, she did acknowledge problems, citing desertions and poor leadership among the Iraqi security forces that are supposed to take charge of pacifying the country.
Rice did not hint at changes in diplomatic efforts to stop nuclear weapons development in Iran and North Korea.
However, on the Middle East, she seized on the election of Mahmoud Abbas as the Palestinian leader as the kind of opening that would impel her to take on an active and personal role in trying to promote negotiations with Israel.
President George Bush plans to attend a ceremonial swearing-in at the State Department tomorrow, with Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg administering the oath.
Rice, a one-time Stanford University academic and analyst of the now-defunct Soviet Union, is the first black woman to hold the job of Secretary of State. The first woman was Madeleine Albright.
Powell was the first black man.
