INHOFE: RICE NOT FITTING REPLACEMENT FOR STATE DEPARTMENT
November 14, 2012
Washington, D.C. -- U.S. Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.), senior member of Senate Armed Services Committee and member of Senate Foreign Relations Committee, issued the following statement regarding U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice as a potential replacement at the State Department should Sec. Hillary Clinton step down:
“Susan Rice would not be a fitting replacement at the State Department should Secretary Clinton step down. During her time as the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Rice has been the Obama administration’s point person in pursuing liberal causes that threaten U.S. sovereignty. She has also not been an effective diplomat or manager at the U.N. as evidenced by her failure to persuade Russia and China to join the U.S. in reining in Iran’s nuclear ambitions, stop the bloody civil war in Syria and halt North Korea’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs. In addition, I find her position on Israel-Palestine relations concerning, especially her reluctant efforts last October to enforce the legislatively mandated cutting off of aid to the United Nations Educational, Science and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) when it extended membership to the Palestinian Authority before the PA was recognized as a full U.N. member. At that time, Ambassador Rice, while acknowledging the law, furiously tried to push millions of taxpayer dollars out the door of the State Department to UNESCO before the law was due to take effect. Finally, and most disturbingly, she played a key role in keeping the truth about the September 11 Benghazi attacks from the American people when she repeatedly appeared on news outlets falsely claiming the attacks were not terrorist efforts, but a rather spontaneous uprising due to a little-viewed web video. This, when earlier in the week, another senior State Department official readily acknowledged that it was a was a “semi-complex attack, and not something planned the morning of the attack. Such a poor record of leadership, management and judgment lead me to oppose Susan Rice as a possible nominee for the State Department.”
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