Rice: Ariel Sharon became someone I admired enormously

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice gave a farewell interview to the CBS television network, in which she elaborated on former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. "He became someone that I admired enormously… He had a very charming side to him," she said.

During the interview, Rice was asked if there was a foreign leader who really surprised her. She immediately replied, "Probably Ariel Sharon, the former Prime Minister of Israel. He’s a – he has is a very tough exterior. He’s a general, not known as someone who was coming to make peace, but rather as someone who came in 2001 to defeat the intifada, and that was very much his image." (Yitzhak Benhorin, Washington)