Al-Quds belongs to all Abraham children

Former US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice says stalemated Middle East talks could not hope for a solution unless Israel stops claiming al-Quds (Jerusalem) for itself.

“A solution is going to have to understand that Jerusalem (al-Quds) is place for all children of Abraham,” Rice said during a speech at the National Press Club on Friday.

Rice went on to defend the war in Iraq, saying Washington’s decision was made not in order to form a democracy in Iraq but rather to remove former dictator Saddam Hussein, who was deemed a security threat.

“You can argue about whether he [Saddam] was danger that needed to be dealt with then or later,” she said, adding that “We decided that he was a threat that needed to be dealt with then.”

“We could have done many, many things, much, much better,” Rice said, acknowledging that she and former US president George W. Bush had made “mistakes.”

Rice, however, did not comment on the fact that none of Saddam’s alleged weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) were ever found in the war-ravaged country.

The remarks by the former US official, who has been criticized for her role in the Bush administration and the built up to the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, coincided with the publication of her memoirs about growing up in racially segregated Birmingham, Alabama.

Outside the Press Club, anti-war protesters demonstrated while wearing masks and carrying pictures depicting Rica as war criminal.

“I am here today to protest the fact that a war criminal like Condoleezza Rice is allowed to go to some prestigious place like the Press Club,” a protester from the organization Code Pink for Peace, Tighe Barry told Press TV.