“As secretary, I will do my best to talk about foreign policy not in abstract terms, but in human terms and bipartisan terms,” she said. “I consider this vital because in our democracy, we cannot pursue policies abroad that are not understood and supported here at home.”
Then she embarked on a nine country world tour that included stops in Rome and Paris, London, Brussels. Bonn, Moscow. Tokyo, Seoul, Seoul, Beijing, and other cities. It was a getting-to-know-you circumnavigation that showed off her grasp of issues, her language skills and her centrality as Mr. Clinton’s chief foreign policy maker and spokeswoman. She seemed to have a wonderful time and generated excitement all around.
“Everybody has their own style, and mine is people to people,” she said on a walk in Rome. “I’m trying mine, and I am enjoying it.”
A Test in Iraq
As Mr. Clinton’s top diplomat during relatively peaceful years, Ms. Albright dealt with regional conflicts in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Haiti, Northern Ireland and the Middle East, but no wide wars. She supported NATO expansion into former Soviet bloc countries of Eastern Europe, and she defended economic sanctions against Iraq.
A crisis on Ms. Albright’s watch developed in late 1997 and early 1998, after Iraq’s president, Saddam Hussein, blocked the access of United Nations inspectors to sites where Iraqi chemical and biological weapons of mass destruction were believed to have been hidden, in violation of a Security Council resolution passed at the end of the 1991 Persian Gulf war.
After months of warnings and a buildup of American military forces in the region Ms. Albright, Mr. Clinton threatened to launch deadly aerial attacks against Iraq if the sites were not reopened for inspection. “Iraq has a simple choice,” Ms. Albright said in a public warning to Hussein. “Reverse course or face the consequences.”
Source: NY Times