US: The US Senate is expected to confirm Dr Condoleezza Rice as Secretary of State today after the Senate Foreign Relations Committee voted yesterday by 16-2 to approve her nomination.
Democratic presidential candidate Sen John Kerry and Sen Barbara Boxer voted against Dr Rice, and other Democrats, including ranking member Sen Joseph Biden of Delaware, said they only reluctantly voted approval because of her role in promoting the war in Iraq.
As the Republican-dominated committee voted, the outgoing secretary of state, Mr Colin Powell, gave a farewell speech to his State Department "family".
"You were my troops, you were America's troops, you are the carriers of America's values," he said, adding that his "dear friend" Dr Rice would bring "gifted leadership".
Hundreds of diplomats and department personnel gave Mr Powell a lengthy ovation when he appeared for the farewell ceremony in the State Department lobby, and applauded for a full eight more minutes as he shook hands before leaving.
In a second day of Senate committee hearings yesterday, Dr Rice faced more grilling over the administration's handling of Iraq.
The outgoing national security adviser acknowledged "there were some bad decisions" by the administration on Iraq, but insisted that Saddam was a dictator who refused to account for weapons of mass destruction.
She said the administration believed, like most intelligence agencies and the UN, that he had weapons of mass destruction.
"He refused to account for them, even with coalition forces sitting on his doorstep."
She was ticked off by Sen Biden, who said "you danced around it, stuck to the party line", rather than level with the Senate about the reasons for the war.
He also expressed exasperation at her refusal to say when the US might leave Iraq, and urged her, in her new post, "for God's sake don't listen to (Defence Secretary) Rumsfeld, he doesn't know what he's talking about".
Sen Biden told Dr Rice that acknowledging mistakes, such as the administration claims that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction and was poised to use them, should not be considered "a sign of weakness".
Sen Boxer, who accused Dr Rice on Tuesday of not being truthful over her advocacy of the war, was not satisfied by her acknowledgement that "some bad decisions" were taken over Iraq.
She accused her of "an unwillingness to give Americans the full story because selling the war was so important to Dr Rice; that was her job". The toll of US dead and wounded was the direct result of the administration's "rigidness" and misstatements.
Sen Biden said he would vote for Dr Rice's confirmation only with "some frustration and reservation".
Dr Rice concluded her testimony by saying: "I can assure you I will be candid; I can assure you I will tell you what I think."
In other testimony, the new Secretary of State signalled that she would take a hard line on Iran. Urged by Republican Sen Lincoln Chafee to consider reconciliation with Iran the same way President Nixon improved relations with China, she retorted: "It is really hard to find common ground with a government that thinks Israel should be extinguished" and which supported terrorist groups and undercut US peace efforts in the Middle East.