Rice defends Bush trip to Iraq
CRAWFORD, United States (AFP) - President George W. Bush (news - web sites)'s national security adviser defended his lightning trip to Baghdad, denying it was a political stunt that inadvertently highlighted the chaos still blighting Iraq (news - web sites).
"Obviously, Iraq is still a dangerous place, and that's no secret to anyone," Condoleezza Rice (news - web sites) told ABC television just hours after returning with Bush from the surprise Thanksgiving holiday visit.
But charges that the secrecy and security blanketing his two-and-a-half stop at Baghdad airport showed that Iraq has made little progress towards stability since the US-led March invasion are "just not true," she said.
"The Iraqis are taking control of their own future. Most of the country remains quite stable. The Iraqis are planning and looking forward to the transfer of sovereignty. They're taking over ministries, schools are opening, all of those things are happening," she said.
Some critics, including the presidential campaign of retired general Wesley Clark (news - web sites), said the brevity and cloak-and-dagger nature of the visit -- which the White House sold as a morale-booster -- actually showed how little Washington has accomplished in Iraq since taking control in April.
"The trip highlights how insecure Iraq is and shows how we need to get our allies in to get the American face off the occupation," Clark spokesman Jamal Simmons told AFP.
"Hopefully, President Bush realized, when he looked into the faces of those soldiers, that he owes them a success strategy in Iraq so that we can get back to the business of fighting the war on terrorism," said Simmons.
Concerns over rising insurgent violence led the White House to impose a vow of silence on media accompanying the president, lifting it only once he was safely away from the Iraqi capital after a stay confined to the airport.
Bush's Air Force One airplane made a special landing designed to limit its exposure to surface-to-air missiles, arriving with its running lights turned off and all shades drawn to prevent light from seeping out and giving away its position.
"Presidential trips require extraordinary security under any circumstances. Under this circumstance, it required even more extraordinary security, but the president wanted to send a message," said Rice.
She also acknowledged that the missile attack earlier this month on a German DHL cargo plane had almost caused the White House to scrap Bush's visit, which was planned for weeks starting in mid-October.
"The DHL incident made people go back and take a look at whether we thought the plane would be safe going in. They determined that it was defended and that it could be done," she said.
Rice also denied that the White House -- which is famed for its attention to political detail -- made the trip to bolster Bush's chances to win a second term in November 2004.
"This originated out of the president and the policy side," said Rice, who stopped short of saying that political adviser Karl Rove did not know about the trip.
Bush's visit overshadowed a similar one a day later by Senator Hillary Clinton (news - web sites). A source familiar with the planning of her visit said the administration was informed in late September that she would go.
Rice said Bush's visit was designed to boost eroding US troop morale and let Iraqis know that the United States will stay until the war-ravaged country is stable and on the road to democracy and prosperity.
"We are still engaged in trying to rid the place of the horrible remnants of the Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) regime. The people who brutalized their fellow Iraqis are still trying to do that, there are foreign terrorists in the country -- everybody knows it's a dangerous place," Rice told the network.
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