# Obama to restore UN ambassador's post to Cabinet rank...



## kwflatbed (Dec 29, 2004)

Susan Rice, who served as an assistant secretary of state under President Bill Clinton, is Barack Obama's foreign policy adviser. (Kevin Sanders/The Associated Press)

*Obama pick for UN ambassador known for tough stance on genocide*









*By Peter Baker* 
Published: December 1, 2008

*CHICAGO:* President-elect Barack Obama has chosen his foreign policy adviser, Susan Rice, to be ambassador to the United Nations, picking an advocate of "dramatic action" against genocide as he rounds out his national security team, Democrats close to the transition said.
Obama was to announce Rice's selection at a news conference here Monday along with his previously reported decisions to nominate Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton for secretary of state, keep Robert Gates as defense secretary and appoint General James Jones, a retired Marine commandant, his national security adviser, the Democrats said Sunday.
The choice of Rice to represent the United States before the United Nations will make her one of the most visible faces of the Obama administration to the outside world aside from Clinton. It will also send to the world organization a prominent and forceful advocate of stronger action, including military force if necessary, to stop mass killings like those in the Darfur region of Sudan in recent years.
To reinforce his intention to work more closely with the United Nations after the tensions of President George W. Bush's tenure, Obama plans to restore the ambassador's post to cabinet rank, as it was under President Bill Clinton, according to Democrats close to the transition.
While the cabinet consists of 15 department heads, a president can give other positions the same rank for the duration of his administration.
"She's obviously one of Obama's closest advisers, so it underscores how much of a priority he's making the position," said Nancy Soderberg, a senior U.S. diplomat at the United Nations under Bill Clinton. "If you look at the last eight years, we obviously need to be more engaged at the UN and realistic about what the UN can do."
At the announcement Monday, the president-elect was to also formally unveil his nominations of Eric Holder Jr. to be attorney general and Governor Janet Napolitano of Arizona to be secretary of homeland security, the Democrats said. He will not announce any of the top intelligence appointments on Monday, but the Democrats said they expected him soon to name Admiral Dennis Blair, a retired Pacific Fleet commander, as director of national intelligence.
If confirmed, Rice, 44, would be the second-youngest U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. A Rhodes scholar who earned a doctorate in international relations at Oxford University, she joined Bill Clinton's National Security Council staff in 1993 before rising to assistant secretary of state for African affairs at age 32. When Obama decided to run for president, she signed on as one of his top advisers, much to the consternation of the Clinton camp, which resented what it saw as a defection.
As the ambassador at the United Nations, Rice will have to coordinate with Hillary Clinton but will not be in the White House or State Department headquarters on a daily basis as major policies are formulated. One person close to Clinton said the senator did not object to Rice serving at the United Nations.
Some colleagues from her Clinton and Obama days said Rice could be blunt and unafraid to "mix it up," as one put it, on behalf of issues she cares about. Rice herself acknowledges a certain impatience at times.
Admirers said she was a good listener and able to stand up to strong personalities, including foreign autocrats and militants in volatile regions of the world.
"Susan certainly is tough, and she's tough in exactly the right way," said Strobe Talbott, president of the Brookings Institution, where Rice worked in recent years. "She's intellectually tough," said Talbott, a former deputy secretary of state. "She's tough in her approach to how the policy-making process should work, and she will be very effective as a diplomat."
John Bolton, one of Bush's ambassadors at the United Nations, would not discuss Rice's selection but said it was unwise to elevate the position to the cabinet again. "One, it overstates the role and importance the UN should have in U.S. foreign policy," Bolton said.
"Second, you shouldn't have two secretaries in the same department."
During her first run at the State Department, Rice was a point person in responding to the 1998 bombing of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania by Al Qaeda. But her most searing experience was visiting Rwanda after the 1994 genocide when she was still on the NSC staff.
As she later described the scene, the hundreds, if not thousands, of decomposing, hacked-up bodies that she saw haunted her and fueled a desire to never let it happen again.
"I swore to myself that if I ever faced such a crisis again, I would come down on the side of dramatic action, going down in flames if that was required," she told the Atlantic Monthly in 2001. She eventually became a sharp critic of the Bush administration's handling of the Darfur killings and last year testified before Congress on behalf of a U.S.-led bombing campaign or naval blockade to force a recalcitrant Sudanese government to stop the slaughter.
Jerry Fowler, president of the Save Darfur Coalition, praised the pending Rice nomination on Sunday, calling it a powerful sign of the new president's interest in the issue. The coalition is urging Obama to begin a "peace surge" of sustained diplomacy to address the continuing problems in Sudan.
"It sends a very strong signal about his approach to the issue of Sudan and Africa in general," Fowler said.

http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/12/01/america/rice.php

 AP 
*Obama filling out next Cabinet in record speed *

AP - 18 mins ago WASHINGTON - President-elect Barack Obama is filling his Cabinet at record speed, choosing loyal friends and one-time foes to guide his wartime foreign policy decisions. Full Story»

*Slideshow:* Obama's Cabinet Picks

*Video:* Jake Tapper Examines Obama's Cabinet


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## kwflatbed (Dec 29, 2004)

*For Conspiracy Theorists

*Hillary Clinton is named the new Secretary of State and the Dow Jones drops 450 points!

Or,

The Dow Jones drops 450 points and Hillary Clinton is named the new Secretary of State!

Take your pick.

Comment (1)

http://interested-participant.blogspot.com/


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## justanotherparatrooper (Aug 27, 2006)

Anyone wanna take odds on whether or not Odrama's administration supports the UN "small arms control bill" theyve been working on the last few years.


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## Guest (Dec 2, 2008)

kwflatbed said:


> *Obama pick for UN ambassador known for tough stance on genocide*


Does that include abortion?


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## Guest (Dec 2, 2008)

> _*Obama pick for UN ambassador known for tough stance on genocide*_


Yeah, because it's tough to pick what side of the fence to be on about GENOCIDE. lollololooloasdffsdlfsdjksdfklfasdjklsdfsd

My head hurts.


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## rg1283 (Sep 14, 2005)

I don't get it is this when you go to the closet where all the ex officiants of past administrations come out again. Bush did the same thing. I guess its hard to find people with experience in cabinet level roles for the POTUS. I even heard he hired Jim Jones to be NSA Advisor. That is nuts! Jim Jones of all people!


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## Killjoy (Jun 23, 2003)

Where is this alleged "change" Obama has been promising for the last year...his Washington team looks like a bunch of familiar faces....


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