White House Criticizes Nancy Pelosi’s Syria Trip
Published by Staff March 31st, 2007 in World.
The Bush administration Friday criticized plans by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to visit Syria. Pelosi and a delegation of other House Democrats are expected to go to Damascus early next week as part of a broader Middle East trip. VOA’s David Gollust reports from the State Department.
Officials here say Speaker Pelosi and her delegation are getting all the customary logistical support from the State Department, including a policy briefing on Syria.
But in an unusual move, the Bush administration has publicly criticized the speaker’s travel plans, saying the visit will undermine U.S.-led efforts to isolate the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
Congressional aides say Pelosi and her colleagues began the mission Friday in Jerusalem where they were to meet Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, and would go on to Syria, then Lebanon and Saudi Arabia.
Pelosi, who as House speaker is just behind Vice President Dick Cheney in the presidential line-of succession, would be the highest-ranking U.S. official to visit Syria in several years.
At the White House, Deputy Press Secretary Dana Perino said the visit was a very bad idea that can only help the Syrian government, which the United States accuses of meddling in Lebanon, supporting Palestinian extremists, and allowing foreign fighters to cross its borders into Iraq.
At a news briefing here, State Department Spokesman Sean McCormack said the Assad government showcases visits of this kind to try to conceal its own political isolation:
“We don’t think it would be appropriate for high-level visitors, even those from the Congress to pay a visit to Syria right now,” he said. “The typical Syrian MO [mode of operation] on this is to use these visits to tell the rest of the world, to say: look, there’s nothing wrong. We’re having all these visitors coming to Damascus. There’s no problem with our behavior. And they point to the visits as proof that there is no problem with their behavior and they are not, in fact, isolated.”
McCormack said the administration’s advice on visiting Syria would be the same to both Democrats and Republicans, while stressing that travel decisions are ultimately made by the legislators themselves.
Though it maintains diplomatic relations with Syria, the United States withdrew its ambassador from Damascus in 2005 after Syrian officials were implicated in the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.
U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Population, Refugees and Migration Ellen Sauerbrey was in Damascus earlier this month in the highest-level State Department visit there in two years.
But McCormack said her talks were limited to her counterparts in the Syrian government and strictly confined to the issue of Iraqi refugees.
The Pelosi delegation also includes, among others, House Foreign Affairs Committee chairman Tom Lantos and first-term Minnesota Democrat Keith Ellison, the first Muslim elected to the U.S. Congress.
A group of Senators from both parties visited Damascus in December after the bipartisan Iraq Study Group recommended greater U.S. dialogue with Syria and Iran in efforts to end Iraqi violence.
Source: VOA
Bush had no problem with CIA renditions being brought to Syria to be tortured. Nor of Republican Congressional deligates already in Syria. Why all the fuss over Pelosi bringing a bipartison group there?
Is Bush afraid Pelosi will learn more about his secret torture prison network?
Bush must have flunked history too….which Republican president opened the door to China, and which Republican president during the height of the cold war, started a dialogue with Russia? Even though both these countries supplied both men, arms and mutions to Vietnam during our war there, these presidents (Nixon & Reagan) had the guts to face our adversaries and do the one thing Bush is scared to do—-TALK!! Too bad, because Bush is demonstrating the characteristics of a narcisstict personality…in the past he had his mommy to bail him out of his failed oil company fiasco and his almost destroying the Texas Rangers—-too bad he doesn’t listen to anyone now…especially the American people!
Is it just possible that the three Republican congressmen were on a mission from the President to Syria and that Pelosi’s visit might be a legitimate concern for the Administration?
When is all the vitriol and hatred going to end….when Hillary is elected? I certainly hope that all the Bush naysayers are prepared for the post 9-11 world they keep clamoring for. Only time will tell which approach is correct….the approach of the President who was elected by the general populace or the Speaker of the House who was elected by a few hundred partisans. I pray we’ll all still be around when the history is written.
I am concerned Mrs Pelosi, as Speaker of the House and third in line for the Presidency, is in harm’s way.
The White House seems to think that the Speaker of the
House must follow the directions of “The Decider”.
Maybe soon, he will see that this is a democracy
and not ruled by one man.