Biography rice condoleezza quotes mushroom cloud

On CNN on Sept.

Biography rice condoleezza quotes mushroom cloud

8, 2002, then-National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice infamously warned — incorrectly — that Saddam Hussein may be close to producing a nuclear weapon. When asked how “close” Saddam was to “developing a nuclear capacity,” Rice replied:

RICE: The problem here is that there will always be some uncertainty about how quickly he can acquire nuclear weapons.

But we don’t want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud.

As a push for action against Iraq, she added, “How long are we going to wait to deal with what is clearly a gathering threat against the United States, against our allies and against his own region?”

Over at the Corner today, Douglas Feith attempts to defend this statement.

“Rice’s reference to the mushroom cloud has been widely denounced as a gaffe or a lie,” he writes. “But it was neither.” From his post:

Rice was highlighting the limits of