Rice: Democrats Won't End Iraq Mission
    By William C. Mann
    The Associated Press

    Thursday 09 November 2006

    Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice says the Democratic wave that won the party control of Congress did nothing to deter the Bush administration from continuing its Iraq mission until "the goal that took us to Iraq" is reached.

    "It's too important to our own security," Rice said in a newspaper interview distributed Thursday by the State Department. "Iraq has to be successful for America to be secure."

    Rice said President Bush has promised "that we will certainly make adjustments to our policy" in Iraq. "We will certainly look to new ideas."

    But while "the American people clearly were voting for change, as the president said," they "were not voting for anything less than a success in Iraq."

    Polling found that qualms about the Iraq war ranked high on the list of reasons given by voters Tuesday for taking away from the GOP control of both the House and the Senate.

    One of Bush's first public acts was to remove Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, widely viewed as the architect of the war effort, and nominate former CIA Director Robert Gates to replace him.

    "The American commitment to the goals that took us to Iraq remains absolutely steadfast, and that is what is important," Rice said.

    Interviewer Derwin Pereira of the Singapore newspaper The Straits Times asked, "So you're saying that the U.S. will stay the course?"

    Rice replied: "The United States will certainly keep after the goal that took us to Iraq, because it's too important to our own security. Iraq has to be successful for America to be secure. And so we will maintain that course."