Susan Rice: Politics First

Susan Rice has been appointed National Security Adviser to the President in a move that is seen as a thumb in the eye of Republicans. Rice’s previous job, Ambassador to the United Nations, will be filled by Samantha Power.

Back in Sep. 2001, Samantha Power wrote a piece about the Rwandan genocide for the Atlantic. In the piece, Power presents a vignette in which “rising star” Susan Rice introduced political concerns into the discussion of Rwanda:

Even after the reality of genocide in Rwanda had become irrefutable, when bodies were shown choking the Kagera River on the nightly news, the brute fact of the slaughter failed to influence U.S. policy except in a negative way. American officials, for a variety of reasons, shunned the use of what became known as “the g-word.” They felt that using it would have obliged the United States to act, under the terms of the 1948 Genocide Convention. They also believed, understandably, that it would harm U.S. credibility to name the crime and then do nothing to stop it. A discussion paper on Rwanda, prepared by an official in the Office of the Secretary of Defense and dated May 1, testifies to the nature of official thinking. Regarding issues that might be brought up at the next interagency working group, it stated,

1. Genocide Investigation: Language that calls for an international investigation of human rights abuses and possible violations of the genocide convention. Be Careful. Legal at State was worried about this yesterday –Genocide finding could commit [the U.S. government] to actually “do something.” [Emphasis added.]

At an interagency teleconference in late April, Susan Rice, a rising star on the NSC who worked under Richard Clarke, stunned a few of the officials present when she asked, “If we use the word ‘genocide’ and are seen as doing nothing, what will be the effect on the November [congressional] election?” Lieutenant Colonel Tony Marley remembers the incredulity of his colleagues at the State Department. “We could believe that people would wonder that,” he says, “but not that they would actually voice it.” Rice does not recall the incident but concedes, “If I said it, it was completely inappropriate, as well as irrelevant.”

So the State Department was worried about using language which might imply responsibility and Rice put partisan political considerations before facts. Why does this all sound so familiar?