Rice feels 'personal responsibility' over Iraq failures

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice brushed aside the growing criticism of her role in prosecuting the Iraq war, declaring herself "very proud" to have helped oust Saddam Hussein in an exclusive interview with AFP.

But the top US diplomat acknowledged feeling a "personal responsibility" for the bloodshed still taking the lives of hundreds of civilians each week nearly four years after the US-led invasion.

"I'm sure there are many, many things that we could have done differently, maybe should have done differently," Rice said when asked if she had any regrets over her part in the war.

But she added: "It's not just that I don't regret having participated in the liberation of Iraq and the overthrow of Saddam Hussein – but I'm very proud that this country finally helped to liberate 25 million Iraqis" from the dictator.

Rice went on to admit that the slow pace of reconstruction, the ongoing anti-US insurgency and "particularly the sectarian violence" between the minority Sunnis who ruled under Saddam and the formerly repressed Shiite majority "is very bad, and it's very hard to take."

"If you are at all responsible for the decision to overthrow Saddam Hussein, you feel a personal responsibility for what's going on there every day," she said.

Rice was US President George W. Bush's national security advisor during the planning and execution of the March 2003 invasion and has overseen the troubled efforts at political and economic reconstruction since taking over as secretary of state in January 2005.

Several books on the war and its aftermath, including "State of Denial" by Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward, have laid much of the blame for the US policy failures in Iraq on Rice and outgoing Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

The Iraq Study Group headed by former secretary of state James Baker implicitly criticized Rice in its report issued last week for her unwillingness to engage with Iraq's neighbors, Syria and Iran, in an effort to end their support for insurgents and sectarian militia in the country.

'Annan's speech a missed opportunity'

On Monday, retiring UN Secretary General Kofi Annan took a farewell jab at US foreign policy, implying America had confused its friends by compromising core ideals in the "war on terror."

In the AFP interview, Rice lamented the speech as a "real missed opportunity".

Rice criticized Annan's failure in the much-awaited speech to highlight the positive role she said Washington had played at the world body over the past two years.

"I would have hoped that it would have talked about the work that we've done together," she said, recalling the joint launch of a global fund for AIDS, a recent resolution aimed at halting the violence in Sudan's Darfur region and the UN ceasefire which ended the July-August war in Lebanon.

"That ceasefire would not have happened without the United States," she said.

"I can go on and on about the positive things we have achieved in this period of time, and so I'm sorry that those were not the focus of the speech," she said.

'Iraqis have to take responsibility for their future'

An opinion poll published on Monday found that 62 percent of Americans said sending troops to fight in Iraq was an error, while 34 percent still backed the decision.

According to the Gallup organization, which conducted the poll for the US television network CBS, not even during the Vietnam conflict did so many Americans oppose the war.

Fifty-two percent said the situation in Iraq is getting worse, while just eight percent say the situation is getting better.

Also for the first time, a majority of Americans said that the war has already been lost.

Rumsfeld resigned following mid-term elections last month which saw Bush's Republican Party lose control of both houses of Congress, in large part due to public anger over the Iraq war.

The president has since launched a full-scale review of the administration's Iraq strategy and is due to announce a new approach to the conflict by Christmas.

Rice said on Monday that she was determined to help implement the new course.

"You also feel a personal responsibility to support and be committed to these people who are struggling out of the ashes of that tyranny to build something new and different in the entire Middle East," she said.

"So I think that Iraqis have got to take responsibility for their future, but they sure deserve to have committed friends who understand the challenge of what they are doing and I feel an equal responsibility to do that."