Condoleezza Rice has a long and distinguished resume. She has a doctorate in International Studies from the University of Denver and was provost at Stanford University during the 1990s. During the Bush administration (2001-2009), Rice was National Security Advisor from 2001 to 2005, Secretary of State from 2005 to 2009, part of President Bush’s “war cabinet” formed after the attacks on September 11, 2001, and probably his most trusted advisor. She is the current director of the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. She is also doing very well financially. Her current wealth is estimated at about $2 million and she is a minority owner of the Denver Broncos football team.
Rice is scheduled to speak at Princeton Theological Seminary on May 8 at a forum on faith and the future of American democracy and there are protests on campus calling for her invitation to speak to be rescinded. Condoleezza Rice, like all Americans, is constitutionally guaranteed freedom of speech and she has many platforms to present her views. But that does not mean she should have been invited to speak at a forum on faith and the future of democracy, given her unwillingness to publicly discuss decisions she was party to during the Bush Administration. It would not violate her freedom of speech or academic freedom to tell her the invitation was a mistake and she is disinvited.
The protests against Rice’s participation in the forum are led by Rev. George Hunsinger, a Presbyterian minister, professor of systematic theology at the Princeton Theological Seminary, and founder of the National Religious Campaign Against Torture. Hunsinger, Princeton students, and other faculty members accuse Rice of authorizing the CIA to use “waterboarding and other enhanced interrogation methods” on alleged terrorists being held captive without legal recourse at the U.S. Guantanamo base in Cuba. Among the actions Rice approved, prisoner Abu Zubaydah was waterboarded over 80 times, buried alive, kept naked, shackled, and sleep deprived, in an effort to force him provide information on suspected terrorist activity in Pakistan. Zubaydah, who lost an eye as a result of his treatment, has now been held at Guantanamo for over twenty years. According to Hunsinger, “Condoleezza Rice is unrepentant and shows no remorse for the torture program.” In 2013, in a video prepared for dedication of the George W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum, Rice candidly defended the decision to torture detainees.
Rice has also never publicly answered for her role in other questionable actions during the Bush Administration, actions that might have led to war crimes charges if the United States recognized the legitimacy of the International Criminal Court. During the Bush Administration, while Rice was National Security advisor, the United States notified the United Nations that it would not ratify the treaty establishing the Court and that it had no obligation to participate in proceedings or honor Court decisions.
Rice is definitely not the best choice to discuss moral standards in foreign policy or governance. In 2004 Congressional hearings, Rice denied there was advanced warning about the September 11, 2001 attacks, despite an August 6 presidential daily briefing memo titled “Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the United States.” In May 2001, Rice and Bush ignored a warning from the CIA Director that there was “100 percent reliable information” suggesting a “spectacular” terrorist attack would be launched against the United States or Israel.
In 2008, Rice defended the Bush administration’s claim that Iraq was prepared to use “weapons of mass destruction” against criticism by a former White House press secretary who charged the administration used propaganda to sell the war to the American people. Although the administration was later forced to acknowledge claims that led to war, the execution of the leader of Iraq, the emergence of ISIS, and the destabilization of the Middle East, were based on faulty intelligence, Rice still insisted “the record on weapons of mass destruction was one that appeared to be very clear.” On multiple occasions, Rice maintained her primary role as a Presidential advisor was to translate Bush’s “instincts” into policy.
Condoleezza Rice previously spoke at Princeton University in 2005 during the 75th anniversary of the university’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. What is most interesting about Rice’s speech on Bush Administration foreign policy achievements is that she was wrong about just about everything. She opened by quoting from President Bush’s Second Inaugural Address, "The best hope for peace in our world is the expansion of freedom in all the world," and claimed “democracies are emerging wherever and whenever the tides of oppression recede.” Rice also argued that the Bush administration was forging “realistic policies from these idealistic principles.” These realistic policies included putting an end to Taliban tyranny in Afghanistan and with U.S. guidance Afghanistan’s “rapid progress toward democracy”; ending Syria’s “brutal” military actions in the Middle East; steps towards a “lasting peace” between Israelis and Palestinians; reforming political institutions in Egypt and Saudi Arabia; and the “liberation of the Iraqi people.” Rice stressed that the United States was acting based on the highest moral standard and that “if you are true to your values, if you are certain of your values, and if you act upon them with confidence and with strength, it is possible to have an outcome where democracy spreads and peace and liberty reign.”
Condoleezza Rice has definitely forfeited the right to claim expertise on foreign policy and governance “based on the highest moral standard.” She should not be speaking at this Princeton forum.