Condi: 'Me? Make A Mistake?'

From an interview with NBC's Andrea Mitchell:

QUESTION: Was it a mistake for the United States to encourage the elections in the first place that led to Hamas? There was a report written by Elisabeth Bumiller in her book, in her biography of you, that you and the U.S. Government were really surprised. You were exercising one more morning and found out that Hamas had won control of Gaza, and that this came as a complete surprise. Was this a failure of analysis, of intelligence, foresight?

SECRETARY RICE: Well, first of all, they won in the Palestinian Legislative Council.

QUESTION: Right.

SECRETARY RICE: They didn’t win the right to go and have an illegal coup against the Palestinian Authority in Gaza. And that’s very important to state, because the legitimate authority was still and still is the Palestinian Authority. The Palestinian Legislative Council elections were one thing, the Palestinian Authority another.

QUESTION: Was it a mistake?

SECRETARY RICE: No, I believe – what was the alternative? That the people of the people of the Palestinian territories don’t get to vote for representation? I might note also that we were – one reason that people were surprised is that all the predictions, including those, by the way of Hamas, were that the Palestinian Authority would – that the Fatah would, in fact, win in those elections. And I think even some members of Fatah would tell you that what was being communicated there was that Fatah needed to do a better job in showing that it was no longer a corrupt party, a corrupt party of Yasser Arafat, but rather, one that was moving on to better governance. And I think that Salam Fayyad and President Abbas have shown over recent – the recent year or so that, in fact, they are bringing a better life for the people of the West Bank, because they’re not corrupt and they are governing on their behalf.

But you know, the United States was actually not the only one that wanted to see elections in – that would allow Hamas to participate. In fact, the Palestinian people as a whole, the Palestinian legislative – the Palestinian Liberation Organization as a whole believed that those elections had to be open.