Barbara Mikulski: “I rise today on the nomination of Dr. Condoleezza Rice to serve as Secretary of State. I have three criteria I use to…”

“I rise today on the nomination of Dr. Condoleezza Rice to serve as Secretary of State. I have three criteria I use to evaluate all executive branch nominees: competence, integrity and commitment to the core mission of the Department. On the basis of those criteria, I will vote to confirm Dr. Rice. Yet I do have concerns. This vote is not an endorsement of President Bush's foreign and defense policy as we saw it during Dr. Rice's tenure as National Security Advisor. I have serious concerns with the way we went to war with Iraq: With the overblown assertions of the threat to the United States; with the deeply flawed intelligence analysis from a few biased sources presented as facts; with the failure to build a strong international coalition; with the failure to prepare and send sufficient forces to deal with the aftermath of removing Saddam from power; and with the failure to prepare by providing our own troops the protective equipment they needed to carry out their missions and come home safe.”