1994: Regrets no U.S. intervention in Rwandan genocide
During the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, Rice was the NSC director for international organizations and peacekeeping under National Security Advisor Anthony Lake in the Bill Clinton administration. Both Lake and Rice later expressed regret about failing to
advocate U.S. intervention, and Clinton himself called it one of the biggest mistakes of his presidency.
"Everyone who lived through that feels profoundly remorseful and bothered by it," Rice told me in an interview in
2008, though she said she was too "junior" at the time to have affected decision-making very much.
Even so, Rice later came under criticism for her relationship with Rwandan President Paul Kagame, who was supplying
and financing a brutal Congolese rebel force known as the March 23 (M23) Movement. While Rice did criticize M23, she avoided linking the group to Rwanda and Kagame.