Add sheer stupidity to the many reasons why Condoleezza Rice is a gigantic failure.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice did not raise questions when the administration marched towards war in Iraq during the first term of President George Bush because of her loyalty to the President, a new book says.

“Rice tended to enable the president’s missteps rather than check them. The basis of the relationship had been formed in the (election) campaign: she molded his instincts, she didn’t challenge them. So as the administration marched toward war in Iraq, she didn’t push back,” says Newsweek’s Marcus Mabry in yet to be released biography of Rice, the National Security Adviser during the US military operation in Iraq.

Even Rice’s friends, most of whom happen to be Democrats, say her affection for Bush blinded her to his failings. “She thought he could do no wrong,” said one, the book says.

“She didn’t question troop levels or the Defense Department’s rosy post-Saddam scenarios. She didn’t demand the administration devise a single, unified plan after Saddam’s statue fell,” says Mabry.

[snip]

In addition, the author says, Rice’s own overconfidence, the same self-assuredness that allowed her to stand in front of the White House as a little girl from segregated Birmingham, and say, “some day, I’ll be in that house” facilitated many of the pre-war mistakes. “Condoleezza Rice had an absolute absence of self-doubt,” the author says.