Rice is poised to publish her memoirs from her time in office next month. A preview of “No Higher Honor: A Memoir Of My Time In Washington” paints Rumsfeld and Cheney as the bad guys and the former President as perhaps well-meaning but poorly served by other advisers.
A clash with Bush's legal counsel, Alberto Gonzales, provoked Rice to claim she would resign. She didn't. Gonzales eventually did. But the revelations demonstrate that the participants in the Bush White House really did not get along.
According to a summary of the book published by the New York Times, the “most intense confrontation between her and Mr. Cheney came when she argued that terrorism suspects could not be 'disappeared' as in some authoritarian states.” Cheney is painted as a frighteningly brutal ultra-realist. No change there then.
Rumsfeld is portrayed as patronising towards Rice, who was National Security Adviser in Bush's 2000-2004 White House.
“You're obviously bright and committed, but it just doesn't work,” Rumsfeld apparently told Rice of their relationship. According to the Times, Rice took the word “bright” to mean he did not view her as an equal. Many female executives will nod their heads knowingly in empathy.
Rice claims several errors of judgement. Bush's rejection of the Kyoto climate change treaty was one, the muted U.S. response to NATO's call that 9/11 was an attack on all member states (Bush's administration preferred a unilateral response) while her New York shopping trip during Hurricane Katrina was not ideal while thousands of African-Americans suffered in New Orleans.
Tellingly, Rice feels the recent Arab Spring revolutions across the Middle East vindicated the Bush Doctrine's clumsy attempt at forcing democracy in the region and spreading “freedom”.
That shows the hubris surrounding the Iraq invasion still remains and misses the entire point of 2011's regime changes across the Middle East.
The Arab Spring was organic while Bush's invasion of Iraq was the long arm of U.S. foreign policy at its worst. Had Rice advised a little patience and more diplomacy then it's not impossible that in 2011 Saddam would still be history -- but overthrown by his own people and with the loss of no American lives and possibly less Iraqi bloodshed.
