Typically cool as a cucumber, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice struggled to hold it together Thursday as members of the House Oversight Committee let her have it on everything from the enormous, expensive and incomplete U.S. Embassy in Baghdad to Blackwater’s killing spree.

Committee Chairman Henry Waxman said of the secretary’s performance: “I think there was a huge gap between what she said and reality.”


Washington Post:

At a hearing by a congressional watchdog committee, Democratic lawmakers said the State Department under Rice had been too lax with armed security contractors, ignored corruption at the highest levels of the Iraqi government and was sloppy in overseeing construction of the costly new U.S. Embassy in Baghdad.

“I think there was a huge gap between what she said and reality,” said Rep. Henry Waxman, chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

Waxman, D-Calif., and other Democrats said they would not call on Rice to resign, noting that their frustration is with the Bush administration’s policies rather than Rice alone.

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