"I don't think that the answer to the war on terrorism, or to winning the war on terrorism, was to simply find Osama bin Laden, break up the al Qaeda network and chase them out of Afghanistan," she said.
Rice explained US policy since the September 11, 2001 attacks as "a much broader strategy" to encourage democratic reforms throughout the Middle East and promote a moderate brand of Islam.
She said Washington's aim "is to have allies in the war on terrorism in the heart of the Arab world and to have a fundamentally different kind of Middle East than we have."
The top US diplomat said the 2003 invasion of Iraq, which the White House had originally said was sparked by Saddam Hussein's suspected weapons of mass destruction, fit into this overall strategy. "We were not going to get a fundamentally different kind of Middle East with Saddam Hussein's Iraq in the middle of it, Rice said.
"The emergence of an Iraq that is moderate and eventually democratic will be fundamental toward a different type of Middle East, and that's the only way to defeat terrorism over the long run."