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Madeleine Albright: Bush Talks 'Victory' Too Much

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In an interview posted on the Democratic National Committee's web site, former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright says she doesn't like the way President Bush "repeatedly" talks about achieving victory in the Iraq war.

"I was very troubled recently, particularly by [Bush's] first speech to the Naval Academy," the former top Clinton diplomat complains in a DNC audio webcast.

"They clearly had some kind of a new pollster in the White House tell them that the word 'victory' had to be repeated endlessly," Albright griped. "Plus, [there was] the backdrop that said 'victory' and then there was 'victory' on the podium. I don't know how many times he used the word 'victory.'"

Still, despite her discomfort over President Bush's victory talk, Albright insisted that she and other Democrats really do want the U.S. to prevail in Iraq.

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  "There's not a Democrat who doesn't want this to work," Albright said. "I think that Democrats are united in not wanting this to fail."

Still, she credited her party with forcing a debate over the question of how President Bush managed to take the country to war without "really having a very good discussion of it."

And Albright complained that it isn't fair for Democrats "to be called unpatriotic simply for asking questions and having a debate."

She also took some pot shots at her successor, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, suggesting that her performance during a recent trip to Europe was a diplomatic embarrassment.

Noting that Rice was repeatedly pressed by reporters to clarify U.S. "torture" policy, Albright said, "I don't think it was a trip that was particularly the one that she had in mind."

"Given the fact that it's being written that she has a great deal of influence with the president, she may have come back and said, 'You know, this was not a great trip - we've got to do something.'"

The former top Clinton diplomat suggested that Dr. Rice may be in over her head, telling the DNC: "I think that you would have had to have been really asleep at the switch not to know what a very hard trip she had and one presumes that others in the White House read the newspapers and could see she had a very hard trip."

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Read more on this subject in related Hot Topics:

Bush Administration
Condoleezza Rice
Iraq
Sen. Hillary Clinton

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