Rice Robustly Responds

And even the Pal. rep backs her up.

State Dept: Israeli PM flat wrong on Rice

The State Department on Tuesday flatly rejected an assertion by Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert that he caused the Bush administration to abstain from last week's U.N. resolution on Gaza and that the abstention embarrassed Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

Spokesman Sean McCormack said the comments attributed to Olmert "are wholly inaccurate as to describing the situation, just 100-percent, totally, completely not true" and suggested that the Israeli government might want to clarify or correct the record...

...McCormack, who pointed out that he was with Rice at the United Nations during the negotiations and vote, denied Olmert's characterization.

"She was not at all embarrassed or ashamed of the actions that we took," he told reporters. "Secretary Rice's recommendation and inclination — the entire time — was to abstain.... This idea that somehow she was turned around on this issue is 100-percent completely untrue."

...Palestinian Foreign Minister Riad Malki said he had been surprised by the U.S. abstention.

"We were told that the Americans were going to vote in favor," he said Friday, a day after the vote.

But when Rice came in to the Security Council chamber, she informed the Saudi foreign minister with an apology that she would abstain and would clarify later that the U.S. supported the resolution nonetheless, according to Malki...