On Iraq war anniversary, Condoleezza Rice announces a book

On March 19, 2003, American troops rolled into Iraq, in search of weapons of mass destruction. “We don’t want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud,” warned Condoleezza Rice, President Bush’s national security advisor. In the long war that followed, more than 4,000 U.S. troops were killed, but not a single “nuke” was ever uncovered.

Exactly 10 years later, Condoleezza Rice has announced a new undertaking: She’s going to write a book. To be published by Henry Holt, it’s being billed as “an examination of democracy at home and abroad.”

“My travels both at home and abroad have underscored the promise and the challenges of democracy,” Rice said in a news release issued by Henry Holt. “The task of building it is never done. I look forward to further exploring these ideals and working with Holt to convey those messages.”

According to Henry Holt, the book will discuss “the never-ending process of building democracy as citizens -- and their governments -- strive to attain and secure the ideals of self-rule.”

After a long occupation, the United States did eventually succeed in establishing a tenuous democracy in Iraq, a country rife with ethnic and religious divisions that were exacerbated by the presence of U.S. troops. According to one recent study, at least 134,000 Iraqi civilians were killed in the war.

Rice is the author of three previous books, all memoirs: They trace her life growing up in Birmingham, Ala., and tell the story a professional career that culminated with her appointment as George W. Bush’s secretary of State.

Writing in The Times, Scott Martelle called her most recent book, the 700-page “No Higher Honor,” “an exhausting walk in Rice’s shoes as, arguably, President George W. Bush’s most influential foreign policy advisor.”

In her new book, she “will draw upon stories from her career and personal life to shed light on the essential questions of contemporary democracy, including the centrality of education, immigration, free enterprise and civic responsibility,” Henry Holt said, adding that Rice will address America’s “American’s destiny as a beacon for global freedom.”

Rice is currently on the faculty at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business.

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hector.tobar@latimes.com