"May I please have some more arsenic in my water, Mommy?"
Maybe, Mummy Barbara filled Jr. Shrub up with so much arsenic water that's he is unable to make critical
decisions. The latest: his old man stepped in and made the critical foreign-policy decision for him. This
was the second one the old man has made for Jr. in the past few months. --Mephisto
Bush Senior, on His Son's Behalf, Reassures Saudi Leader
July 15, 2001
From The New York Times
By JANE PERLEZ
WASHINGTON, July 14 — For the second
time in the last few months, former
President George Bush has intervened in a critical
foreign policy area, calling Crown Prince Abdullah
of Saudi Arabia to reassure him that the current
president's "heart" is in the right place when it
comes to the Middle East, said both a senior
administration official and a diplomat from the
region.
The former president telephoned the crown prince,
who has complained that the current Bush
administration is too close to Prime Minister Ariel
Sharon of Israel, before Secretary of State Colin L.
Powell was dispatched to the Middle East by the
White House late last month, the officials said.
The point of the call was to vouch for his son and to
assuage concerns of the crown prince, who is the
day- to-day ruler of Saudi Arabia, that some strains
in the United States' relations with Saudi Arabia
over the Israeli-Palestinian conflict do not represent
a permanent breach, they said.
Former President Bush also urged Abdullah to visit
the United States, an invitation that had been
offered earlier by the White House but sidestepped
by the Saudi leader, the diplomat said. The crown
prince deferred again, according to the accounts.
The former president made his call to the crown prince at a newly sensitive moment
in relations between the kingdom and Washington.
Abdullah has been unusually blunt in his criticism of the new administration's handling
of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In particular, he has said that the administration
should show more understanding of the Palestinian position and be more outspoken
against actions by the Sharon government.
In his conversation with the crown prince, former President Bush said that his son's
"heart is in the right place" and that his son was "going to do the right thing," a
Middle East diplomat said. A senior administration official said that the phone call,
warm and familiar in tone, was designed to encourage Abdullah to think of the new
president as having a grasp of the Middle East similar to that of his father.
According to one of the accounts, President Bush was in the room when his father
made the call.
The former president's close interest in his son's management of foreign policy
comes as the new president, a novice in the field, has dealt with a series of difficult
decisions early in his presidency.
Last month, as the administration considered what posture to take with North
Korea, former President Bush sent his son a memo by a Korean expert, Donald P.
Gregg, that argued the United States should re-engage with the Communist regime.
A policy review by the administration incorporated some of the memo's ideas.
Some foreign policy advisers of the former president said that given the wide
disparity in experience between father and son in foreign affairs it was a natural
instinct for the father to guide his son informally.
These advisers noted that the counsel is initiated by the father, who made foreign
affairs the hallmark of his presidency, rather than being actively sought by the son,
who is more centered on domestic issues.
The former president has made a practice of keeping up to date on his passion for
foreign affairs, in part by making use of a privilege granted to all former presidents:
briefings on the latest information from around the world by the Central Intelligence
Agency, which the former president once led.
Sometimes the elder Mr. Bush is briefed by the agency when he comes to
Washington, and at other times when he is in his office in Houston, C.I.A. officials
said. He requests these briefings on a far more frequent basis than the other living
presidents, they said.
Because of this the former president's briefings are sometimes jocularly referred to
at the C.I.A. as "President's daddy's daily briefing," a take-off on the official title of
the daily briefing for the president.
The chief of staff of former President Bush, Jean Becker, said today that Mr. Bush
was "not comfortable" commenting on his phone calls. But, she added, it was "not
unusual for him to keep in touch with his friends since he left office."
And officials at the current White House, who have made it a habit to decline
making statements on the relationship between father and son, did not return a
telephone call asking for comment.
Senior officials who worked for the former president — including Secretary Powell
and Vice President Dick Cheney — are sprinkled through the top echelons of his
son's foreign policy machinery.
Now, another one, Brent Scowcroft, who was the national security adviser to the
former president, is expected to be the new chairman of the president's Foreign
Intelligence Advisory Board, said its current chairman, Warren Rudman.
Mr. Scowcroft, who recently criticized the administration, saying that it had let down
its Arab friends during the current Israeli-Palestinian conflict, spent time with father
and son at the Bush family compound in Kennebunkport, Me., last weekend.
Relations between Saudi Arabia and the United States were at a high during the first
Bush presidency, when the elder Mr. Bush successfully led the gulf war against
Saddam Hussein of Iraq, largely from bases in Saudi Arabia.
But recent friction between the Saudi military and American soldiers at the Prince
Sultan base in Saudi Arabia have led some senior Pentagon officials to believe that
the crown prince's discontent over the administration's Middle East policy had
spilled over.
The Saudis have said they will not extradite 11 suspects they hold who are wanted
by the United States in the 1996 truck bombing that killed 19 American servicemen.
In the last few months, the Saudis have placed restrictions on the kinds and amounts
of ordnance that the Americans can bring into the base, Pentagon officials said.
These difficulties are being worked out at senior levels of the two militaries, the
officials said.
At the end of his recent trip to Israel and the Palestinian territories, Secretary Powell
stopped in Paris to meet with Abdullah. According to American and Middle East
accounts of the meeting, the crown prince was frank in describing what he sees as
the one-sided attitude of the administration in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict but
presented his criticisms in a "we are friends" manner.
nytimes.com |
