After her talks with leaders from Britain, France, Germany, and officials of Russia and China in Europe at the end of March, Rice returned to Washington with a sobering message: the international effort to derail Iran's nuclear program was falling apart, the newspaper revealed

Rice's conclusion spurred a secret discussion with President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and national security adviser Stephen J. Hadley: Should the U.S. finally agree to join the Europeans in the negotiations with Iran?

Though Bush administration officials had publicly consistently dismissed that possibility, they gradually realized that soon the administration would be forced to join the talks. Otherwise, the options seemed to either be that Iran would get the nuclear bomb or the United States would be drawn into another war.

"Condi (Condoleezza) felt the need to jump-start the talks and take control of the situation," an American official was quoted by the Washington Post as saying.

In mid-May, under strict secrecy, Rice assembled a small group of her closest aides to figure out how to structure and package the announcement, the newspaper revealed. At a press conference on Wednesday, Rice announced that the U.S. would join the EU in talks with Iran on the condition that Iran suspended its uranium enrichment and reprocessing activities.

However, Iran has refused to do so and continued to hold the line that its uranium enrichment programs were for peaceful purposes only.