Condoleezza Rice, was asked this very question at her confirmation hearing to become the next secretary of state. Barbara Boxer pushed the issue extensively:
Boxer: "Ms. Rice, what is your response regarding the misleading statements made by yourself and the administration regarding the length of the Presidential driveway?"
Rice: "What?"
Boxer: "The Presidential Driveway. Your misleading statements justifying it to the American people..."
Rice: "Right. Our statements were based on the best intelligence available at the time."
Boxer: "And that intelligence has since been proven flawed."
Rice: "Correct."
Boxer: "How wrong?"
Rice: "We overestimated the length, width and effect of the Presidential Driveway."
Boxer: "Factually speaking, with what you know today, what is the state of the Presidential Driveway, today?"
Rice: "It's this big."
"She did no more than any other member of the administration, but they all misled," Biden told CBS'"The Early Show" on Wednesday.
"She's always been candid and honest, and she listened," Hagel said.
"Dr. Rice is responsible for some of the most overblown rhetoric that the administration used to scare the American people into believing that there was an imminent threat from [her driveway]," Byrd said.
In this image made from video, Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchinson, R-Tex., continues to tow the party line regarding the girth of the Presidential Driveway, despite statements from Ms. Rice and the administration concluding otherwise...
