The New York Times
Bush Demands 'Cooperation' From Syrians
By ERIC SCHMITT and DAVID E. SANGER
WASHINGTON, April 13 — President Bush accused Syria today of harboring senior Iraqi military and government officials and demanded "cooperation" in punishing some of them. But he stopped short of threatening to use military force against Syria.
"Each situation will require a different response," Mr. Bush told reporters on returning here from a weekend at the presidential retreat at Camp David. "First things first. We're here in Iraq now."
Mr. Bush also asserted that "there are chemical weapons in Syria," although it was not clear whether he thought Iraqi chemical arms had been shipped there during or before the war. Top Pentagon officials gave varying assessments today of whether that had happened. A senior administration official said Mr. Bush was referring to Syria's own weapons program.
In the latest warning to Syria, Mr. Bush said that "the Syrian government needs to cooperate with the United States and our coalition partners and not harbor any Baathists, any military officials, any people who need to be held to account for their tenure during what we are learning more and more about what was one of the most horrendous governments ever."
Today, an Iraqi Kurdish official said Watban Ibrahim Hasan, a half-brother of Saddam Hussein and one of 55 Iraqis on a most-wanted list issued by the United States, had been captured near the Syrian border. The official, Hoshyar Zebari, said he believed other senior Baath Party officials were hiding in the area and hoping to receive permission to enter Syria.
Syrian officials today denied the allegations of taking in Iraqi leaders and accused Washington of waging a "disinformation campaign" against them to divert attention from the looting and other lawlessness in Baghdad since the fall of Mr. Hussein's government.
The broad question of how the victory in Iraq can be leveraged for diplomatic advantage with other countries that the Bush administration has labeled potential threats to the United States is moving to the forefront in Washington even before full stability is achieved in Iraq,
For the first time in six months — since North Korea threw nuclear inspectors out of the country and restarted its nuclear facilities at Yongbyon — Mr. Bush declared today that efforts to bring the reclusive government to the bargaining table on Washington's terms "might be coming to fruition."
Mr. Bush was referring to a declaration by North Korea's Foreign Ministry on Saturday that it might be open to holding multilateral talks on the issue, with China, Japan, South Korea and the United States. Until now, it had insisted it would talk only to Washington, and would settle for nothing less than a formal "nonaggression" pact with the United States, ratified by the Senate.
Mr. Bush and his aides have insisted — under considerable criticism from both Democrats and Republicans — that the United States will not talk one-on-one with the North Korean government because it views the Korean nuclear threat as a regional problem.
But after several phone calls from Mr. Bush, China's leaders began to put pressure on North Korea in recent weeks — a mix of threats and incentives, officials say, that appear to have registered on the country's reclusive leader, Kim Jong Il.
China provides most of North Korea's oil, and for a few days last month it shut off the spigot. It was a technical problem, the Chinese said, but the diplomatic message seemed clear. "It was a reminder that if the North Koreans pushed things too far, they could suffer a high price," one American official said.
Mr. Bush made no mention of the Chinese role today. But he said that "we are making good progress in North Korea."
"We have made it clear that we think that the best way to deal with their proliferation is through a multinational forum," he said. "It looks like that might be coming to fruition."
North Korea engaged earlier in a series of "four party talks," but abandoned them when it felt it was not getting the kind of concessions it wanted. "It could happen again," said one senior American official. "But you don't know until you try."
The unknown issue — for Mr. Bush and his intelligence advisers — is how Mr. Kim may have reacted to the quick American drive to Baghdad. Several administration officials have said it is too early to know if this will drive Mr. Kim to the negotiating table — or back to the laboratory, to build a good-sized nuclear arsenal before he confronts Washington.
The administration's war of words with Syria has intensified since Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld accused the Syrian government last month of allowing night-vision goggles to be shipped into Iraq.
Today, Mr. Rumsfeld joined Mr. Bush in accusing Syria of harboring senior Iraqi officials and allowing "busloads" of Syrian mercenaries to drive into Iraq and join Iraqi paramilitaries in fighting Americans.
Mr. Rumsfeld said some of the buses had been stopped and sent back to Syria; others were impounded and the fighters taken prisoner. "On one of the buses, they found something like several hundred thousand dollars and a number of leaflets that suggested that people would be rewarded if they killed Americans," Mr. Rumsfeld said on CBS News's "Face the Nation."
Mr. Rumsfeld said there was "absolutely no question" that some senior Iraqis remain in Syria, while others have been spirited out to third countries. He also noted that Syria had long been on the State Department's list of countries supporting terrorist groups, namely Hamas and Hezbollah.Last week, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz said there were no plans to send American troops into Syria.
But moving against Syria militarily or diplomatically would be an indirect way of cutting off aid to Hezbollah.The Pentagon, State Department and Central Intelligence Agency have long held that Syria has developed chemical weapons, and is also pursuing biological weapons.
Mr. Rumsfeld said today that it was possible Iraq had sent some of its illicit arsenal to a neighboring country, but he did not identify which one. Gen. Richard B. Myers, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Gen. Tommy R. Franks, the allied commander in the Persian Gulf, have said they do not believe Iraq has shipped unconventional weapons out of the country.Mr. Rumsfeld did not confirm the report that Mr. Hussein's half-brother had been captured.
As for Mr. Hussein's own fate, "he either is dead or he is going to be caught, and we'll find him," Mr. Rumsfeld said on the NBC News program "Meet the Press."General Franks said today on CNN's "Late Edition" that the military had samples of Mr. Hussein's DNA, and would use them to determine whether he had been killed or injured in two separate airstrikes in Baghdad over the last three weeks.
Administration and military officials today bristled at the criticism that American forces had failed to take steps to curb the looting that has seized much of Baghdad, including most of the city's hospitals and Iraq's National Museum."It is a situation that is chaotic because Saddam Hussein created the conditions for chaos," Mr. Bush said. "He created conditions of fear and hatred. And it's going to take a while to stabilize the country."
Taking aim at those who initially criticized the Penagon's war plan, Mr. Bush predicted this phase would also be second-guessed. But he promised that food, medicine and stability were on the way. |
