Editing Condoleezza Rice (section)

===Iraq===
[[File:Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Rice in Camp David.jpg|thumb|Cheney, Rice and Rumsfeld participate in a video conference with President Bush and Iraqi PM Maliki in 2006]]
Rice was a proponent of the [[2003 invasion of Iraq]]. After [[Iraq]] delivered its declaration of [[weapons of mass destruction]] to the [[United Nations]] on December 8, 2002, Rice wrote an [[editorial]] for ''[[The New York Times]]'' entitled "Why We Know Iraq Is Lying".<ref>{{cite news |first=Condoleezza |last=Rice |title=Why We Know Iraq Is Lying |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/23/opinion/why-we-know-iraq-is-lying.html |work=[[The New York Times]] |date=January 23, 2003 |access-date=November 3, 2008 |archive-date=August 23, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200823023012/https://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/23/opinion/why-we-know-iraq-is-lying.html |url-status=live }}</ref> In a January 10, 2003, interview with CNN's [[Wolf Blitzer]], Rice made headlines by stating regarding Iraqi president Saddam Hussein's nuclear capabilities: "The problem here is that there will always be some uncertainty about how quickly he can acquire nuclear weapons. But we don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud."<ref>{{cite news |first=Wolf |last=Blitzer |author-link=Wolf Blitzer |title=Search for the 'smoking gun' |url=http://edition.cnn.com/2003/US/01/10/wbr.smoking.gun/ |work=CNN|date=January 10, 2003 |access-date=November 3, 2008 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081210195501/http://edition.cnn.com/2003/US/01/10/wbr.smoking.gun/ |archive-date=December 10, 2008 |url-status=live }}</ref>

In October 2003, Rice was named to run the ''Iraq Stabilization Group,'' to "quell violence in Iraq and Afghanistan and to speed the reconstruction of both countries."<ref>{{cite news |first=David E. |last=Sanger |author-link=David E. Sanger |title=White House to Overhaul Iraq and Afghan Missions |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/06/world/white-house-to-overhaul-iraq-and-afghan-missions.html |work=[[The New York Times]] |date=October 6, 2003 |access-date=May 27, 2019 |archive-date=August 23, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200823023054/https://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/06/world/white-house-to-overhaul-iraq-and-afghan-missions.html |url-status=live }}</ref> By May 2004, ''The Washington Post'' reported that the council had become virtually nonexistent.<ref>{{cite news |first=Dana |last=Milbank |title=Stabilization Is Its Middle Name |newspaper=[[The Washington Post]] |date=May 18, 2004 |page=A17 |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A34519-2004May17.html |access-date=August 20, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190217124708/http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A34519-2004May17.html |archive-date=February 17, 2019 |url-status=live }}</ref>

Leading up to the [[2004 United States presidential election|2004 presidential election]], Rice became the first National Security Advisor to campaign for an incumbent president. She stated that while: "Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with the actual attacks on America, Saddam Hussein's Iraq was a part of the Middle East that was festering and unstable, [and] was part of the circumstances that created the problem on September 11."<ref>{{cite news |agency=Associated Press |title=Rice defends decision to go to war in Iraq |url=http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/10/22/rice.speech.ap/ |work=CNN|date=October 22, 2004 |access-date=November 3, 2008 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20041117054631/http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/10/22/rice.speech.ap/ |archive-date=November 17, 2004}}</ref>

After the invasion, when it became clear that Iraq did not have nuclear [[Weapon of mass destruction|WMD]] capability, critics called Rice's claims a "hoax", "deception" and "demagogic scare tactic".<ref>{{cite news |first=Wayne |last=Drash |title=Report: No WMD stockpiles in Iraq |url=http://edition.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/10/06/iraq.wmd.report/ |work=CNN|date=October 7, 2004 |access-date=November 3, 2008 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171107020626/http://edition.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/10/06/iraq.wmd.report/ |archive-date=November 7, 2017 |url-status=live }}</ref> Dana Milbank and Mike Allen wrote in ''The Washington Post'': "Either she missed or overlooked numerous warnings from intelligence agencies seeking to put caveats on claims about Iraq's nuclear weapons program, or she made public claims that she knew to be false".<ref>{{cite news |first=Dana |last=Milbank |author-link=Dana Milbank |author2=Mike Allen |title=Iraq Flap Shakes Rice's Image |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/2003/07/27/iraq-flap-shakes-rices-image/eeb1306c-2653-444d-ae03-a76fe1d7e6f8/ |newspaper=[[The Washington Post]] |page=A0 |date=July 27, 2003 |access-date=November 3, 2008 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180820141126/https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/2003/07/27/iraq-flap-shakes-rices-image/eeb1306c-2653-444d-ae03-a76fe1d7e6f8/ |archive-date=August 20, 2018 |url-status=live }}</ref>