Diane Carman of the Denver Post interviewed Condoleezza Rice's former professor , Arthur N. Gilbert, at the University of Denver International Studies Program. Interestingly, the former Director of the Program was Josef Korbel, the father of former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. In fact, Korbel was the reason Rice changed her major from music to international studies.

Professor Gilbert has some flattering things to say about Condi personally, but is harshly critical of her stance on Iraq.

Gilbert is puzzled by what has become of this bright, diligent student...he believes she has failed to heed the lessons of the past. To a historian, this is unconscionable. When the Bush administration exploited the nation's anxiety over 9/11 to justify invading Iraq, Gilbert said, "it was the worst foreign policy decision made in living memory. "It worries me that with all this focus on 9/11, it's taking the grave situation in Iraq off the front page," he said, referring to the hearings. "Iraq is a catastrophe beyond measure."

The fact that Rice is capable of defending the decision to go to war is a "terrible failure of education, of picking up what your education should have led you to."....Whether Rice shared the neoconservatives' obsession with Iraq or was just being a "good soldier," Gilbert said, Iraq will be her disastrous legacy. "It was such a horrendous mistake, knowing what she should have known.... He shakes his head. Rice should have known better than to send our troops to Iraq, he said.