Quotes from Condoleezza Rice, named Sunday as President-elect Bush's national security adviser.
From an interview with The Associated Press last week:
On George W. Bush's readiness to be commander in chief:
"You look for someone with the right values, who stands on principle and has good judgment. He had those in plenty supply.... He's obviously spent the time, like anyone would do, filling out his knowledge of these issues. There's no doubt the period of the campaign was extremely important in helping him to do that."
On controversies during her tenure as Stanford provost:
"I don't actually mind conflict very much. I don't know what it is about me."
On the nation having a black secretary of state and a black national security adviser:
"I don't know what to make of it in the cosmic scheme of things. It will be good for America to have African Americans in nontraditional roles. He (Bush) did this for the right reasons. That's what's most important to me. In fact, that's what's very nice about this. Maybe it says something about where we are 140 years after slavery, which is pretty remarkable."
On whether the United States should promote democracy abroad:
"It's always an important goal of our foreign policy to care about democratic development. There's always an issue of how you get it done. There's always an issue of how much America can do."
On her upcoming job:
"I think I'm prepared and I think there will be other good people around. We (she and Bush) both believe in God, which helps."
From an article in the January-February 2000 issue of Foreign Affairs magazine:
"The Clinton administration has often been so anxious to find multilateral solutions to problems that it has signed agreements that are not in America's interest. The Kyoto treaty (on global warming) is a case in point."
"Neither is it isolationist to suggest that the United States has a special role in the world and should not adhere to every international convention and agreement that someone thinks to propose."
"The Kosovo war was conducted incompetently, in part because the administration's political goals kept shifting and in part because it was not, at the start, committed to the decisive use of military force.... If it is worth fighting for, you had better be prepared to win."
"U.S. intervention in these 'humanitarian' crises should be, at best, exceedingly rare."
"Nothing will change (in Iraq) until Saddam (Hussein) is gone, so the United States must mobilize whatever resources it can, including support from his opposition, to remove him."