Well, Steven, I guess we are going to swallow hard and get back in bed with them.
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washingtonpost.com
Bush Open To Military Ties With Indonesia
By Mike Allen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, October 17, 2003; Page A20
RIVERSIDE, Calif., Oct. 16 -- President Bush told Indonesian TV this week that he was ready to resume military-to-military contacts with Indonesia, which were severed in 1999 after violence by Indonesian soldiers in East Timor.
Bush said he believed the ties could be restored because he was pleased with the government's cooperation in investigating the killing of two American teachers in Indonesia's eastern Papua province last year.
"I think we can go forward with [a] package of mil-to-mil cooperation because of the cooperation of the government on the killings of the two U.S. citizens," he said. A senior administration official said that was a reference to cooperation between the FBI and Indonesian authorities, rather than to any break in the case.
Bush's remarks were released by the White House on Thursday.
Gunmen ambushed the staff of an international school in Papua on Aug. 31, 2002, killing the two Americans and an Indonesian and wounding eight other Americans, including a 6-year-old girl. U.S. officials have said the "preponderance of the evidence" indicates that members of the Indonesian military were involved, but so far no suspects have been named. The Indonesian military has denied involvement.
During the FBI's initial efforts to investigate, Indonesian military officials would not allow soldiers in Papua to be interviewed without superiors present or the FBI to conduct forensic tests on evidence. The House and a Senate committee passed provisions earlier this year linking military assistance to cooperation, and the FBI was allowed to bring home some evidence for analysis. Last month the Indonesian government promised to step up its investigation.
Congress had cut off weapons sales and curtailed attendance by some Indonesian officers at U.S. military academies. But the two nations held security talks last year, and Secretary of State Colin L. Powell announced that the United States would resume military training there as part of a broad program of counterterrorism assistance.
Bush plans a three-hour stop next week on the Indonesian resort island of Bali, the site of terrorist bombings last October that killed 202 people. Bush said at a round-table discussion with Asian newspaper editors that he believed President Megawati Sukarnoputri "refuses to stand in fear of the terrorists" and that he wanted her to continue to work closely with the United States.
Bush left California on Thursday afternoon for Japan, where he is to begin a six-nation trip devoted to building pressure on North Korea to halt its nuclear weapons program, increasing international contributions to the reconstruction of Iraq, bolstering counterterrorism efforts and discouraging currency manipulation that could hurt U.S. manufacturers.
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