WASHINGTON, August 20 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - US national security advisor Condoleezza Rice admitted the administrations failure to win hearts and minds of the world Muslims, in what experts attribute to uneven-handed policy in the Middle East and unjustified Iraq invasion.

"We can and we must do more," Rice said Thursday, August 20, in a speech to the US Institute of Peace.

"Our interaction must be a conversation, not a monologue," she said, noting that the United States wants to dispel an image that Washington is a "crass" culture.

Many Muslims across the world have been critical of the US-led invasion of Iraq - justified for finding out weapons of mass destruction, none of which have been found so far in the oil-rich country - and a long-standing pro-Israeli bias.

Rice admitted that goals to burnish the image of Washington among Muslims have been pursued in the past, with little success.

Nor did she defend US public diplomacy in the Islamic world, which has been harshly criticized by many in Congress and recently by the national commission on the September 11 attacks.

"We are obviously not very well organized for the side of public diplomacy," she said.

Rice said in the speech the effort to reach out to Muslims was a crucial part of the fight against terrorism, but she gave no details about how it would be implemented.

Rice acknowledged widespread skepticism toward America among Muslims, adding that increased funding for new radio and television channels targeting the Muslim world and "doubling the funding of the National Endowment for Democracy," was not enough.

Muslim scholars agreed, saying any attempts to win Muslim hearts and minds would be doomed in the absence of a change in US Middle East policy.

"Unless we take real action to be more even-handed in trying to resolve the Mideast conflict, little else will matter," Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, was quoted by Reuters as saying.

The Bush administration has tried to burnish the US image among Muslims through broadcasts, educational exchange programs and other measures. Bush has also sought to promote political and economic reforms in the Arab world.

But these efforts have been widely criticized for being simplistic. Bush has also been accused by many Muslims of supporting a hard-line Israeli policy against Palestinians and for failing to place sufficient emphasis on resolving the Israel-Palestinian conflict.

"I think we're very far from winning hearts and minds," said Shibley Telhami, a professor at the University of Maryland who studies Muslim attitudes.

Telhami, who was named by Bush last year to an advisory committee on improving the US image abroad, gave credit to Rice for acknowledging a problem.

But he said spending on outreach has been "dismal" and he noted that under Bush, Muslim views toward the United States have gotten worse, not better.

Rice’s comments came a day after she faced blunt criticism from a former administration weapons inspector for Iraq David Kay who said that the National Security Council, which Rice heads, had botched the handling of prewar intelligence.

Kay said Rice was "the dog that did not bark" over alleged Iraqi weapons, the fact that none of which have been found raised fears the invasion of the Muslim country was based on false pretexts.

Rice’s experience as a university professor, she said, taught her that universities "ought to be looking at what they're doing to engage the Muslim world, what they're doing to encourage people to study these cultures, what they're doing to train people in these languages."

"I also know that we as a country mobilized ourselves not just in the government, but in universities to study the Soviet Union and east European languages, and to send our best and brightest into the study of those societies," Rice said.

"And I know that we as a society, leave alone the government, we as a society are not yet mobilized in that way with regards to the Muslim world," she added.

A September 11 panel report urged that the government provide "much larger resources" to support broadcasts to Muslim audiences; rebuild scholarship and exchange programs; help fight high illiteracy in the Middle East; and do more to encourage economic development and free trade.

In an election year, reaching out to Muslims could also make political sense for Bush.

Zogby attributed the shift in sentiment to the invasion in Iraq, US Middle East policy and post-Sept. 11, 2001 legislation such as the USA Patriot ACT, which many Muslims feel discriminates against them.

While Muslims represent only 1 to 1-1/2 percent of the US vote, Zogby said they could prove to be an important voting bloc in some battleground states such as Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania.