Here's the list of questions she was to answer in writing for her confirmation hearing:
http://lugar.senate.gov/reports/Lugar_India_Responses_Rice.pdfA search of that pdf for "Niger" yields 1 result: (page 82)
"Question: Secretary Rice, other than the United States, who would be the principal
nations that are capable of selling India nuclear fuel, nuclear materials and
reactor technology?
Answer: The world’s largest producers of uranium (outside the United States)
are, in order, Canada, Australia, Kazakhstan, Russia, Namibia, Niger,
Uzbekistan, Ukraine, and South Africa. All export uranium.
China, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Russia, and the UK are all
capable of supplying uranium enrichment services. Japan also has
significant uranium enrichment capability that it uses for its domestic
market.
Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, Kazakhstan, Russia, Spain,
Sweden, and the UK are the principal nuclear fuel exporters. Argentina,
Brazil, Japan, and the Republic of Korea have significant nuclear fuel
manufacturing capability that they use for their domestic markets.
(this continues on page 83)
Now, unless the search is screwy or I'm illiterate...I do not see how that question asks Rice about the forged Niger documents.
In her opening statement, Niger yields 0 results.
http://foreign.senate.gov/testimony/2005/RiceTestimony050118.pdfThe only proof so far that I can find she was involved with hearings over the Niger docs was not in her confirmation hearings. From
http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0728-25.htm in a piece by Scott Ritter:
"Apparently reflecting the original rumors of the Iraq-Niger deal and the subsequent dubious documents handed the Italians thirteen months before (copies of which have reportedly been given to MI6 British intelligence by an Italian journalist), a British Government White Paper on Iraq released in September mentions that Baghdad “had recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.” Pressed on the issue by the CIA (on the basis of its now-several reports debunking the story) to drop that statement as inaccurate, the British claim they have sources for the assertion “aside from the discredited
letters,” but never identify them. Rice is fully briefed on all these exchanges.
(Eventually, British intelligence officials will admit the 2002 White Paper statement on uranium from Africa was “unfounded.” Meanwhile, however, much of official Washington is aware of the CIA-MI6 squabble over the Niger uranium and questionable letters. “The Brits,” a Congressional intelligence committee staffer will later tell the New Yorker’s Sy Hersh in discussing the issue, “…placed more stock in them than we did.”)
It’s also that September, in answer to a question in a CNN interview about what evidence the White House has of Iraqi nuclear weapons, that Rice makes her infamous quip, a line first authored by Mary Matalin—“We don’t want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud.”
September 26, 2002: In closed-hearing testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee (with a transcript closely reviewed by Rice), Powell refers to “reports” of an Iraqi purchase of Nigerien uranium as “further proof” of Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction. "
So, the explanation in two words is: They're lying.
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