Rice: International Religious Liberty A U.S. Priority
POSTED: 4:27 pm PDT June 14, 2006
GREENSBORO, N.C. -- Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Wednesday that the U.S. military interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan do not assure those countries will become successful democracies. But she said the chance for success is worth the price.
Speaking to a largely conservative audience of more than 12,000 Southern Baptists, Rice said she knows optimism can hard to sustain in the face of daily sectarian carnage and beheadings in Iraq.
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Rice, the daughter and granddaughter of Presbyterian ministers, was introduced by outgoing Southern Baptist Convention President Bobby Welch as "a woman of faith and not ashamed to testify to that."
She referred often to God and prayer, and cast U.S. work overseas, from Iraq to Sudan to the attempts to stem the trafficking of human beings for forced labor or sex, in religious terms.
As she left the podium, delegates in the upper arena began to sing "God Bless America." The whole arena joined in the spontaneous anthem.
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