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Politics : Stockman Scott's Political Debate Porch -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Wharf Rat who wrote (45397)	5/6/2004 8:05:39 PM
From: Wharf Rat	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 89467

Arabs Say Bush Interviews Are Too Little Too Late By Jonathan Wright CAIRO (Reuters) - President Bush did too little too late when he told two Arabic-language television stations that he condemned the mistreatment of Iraqi prisoners, Arab commentators and pundits said on Thursday. While the White House portrayed the interviews with al-Hurra and Al Arabiya on Wednesday as a special effort to address Arab public opinion, the commentators said Arabs saw Bush on television often and were unlikely to change their minds about him on the basis of a single appearance. Some said that Bush was more worried about looking good to Americans in advance of presidential elections in November than in improving relations with the Arab world, which would require painful changes in U.S. policy toward Iraq and Israel. In the interviews with U.S. government-financed station Alhurra and the Dubai-based channel Al Arabiya, Bush said the abuse of Iraqi prisoners was abhorrent and justice would be done after a full investigation. But he did not apologize for the abuses or suggest any second thoughts about the policies which Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak says have helped make the United States more hated than ever in the Middle East. "It's not enough for the American president to punish the troops who committed the odious practices and it's not enough that the national security adviser (Condoleezza Rice) apologizes," commentator Ghassan Sharbal wrote in the London-based pan-Arab newspaper al-Hayat. "It's not enough for Bush to be indignant... What they need to do is take an immediate decision to withdraw their forces from Iraq, confess the terrible injustice they have done to Iraq and apologize in public for what their troops have done," added Egyptian columnist Ahmed el-Birri in Egypt's al-Ahram. "In the end we say to them (Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair): 'Enough of your illusions. The time of empires has passed and will never return.'," he added. Bush's reputation in the Arab world had already suffered badly this year from his concessions to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Washington's refusal to condemn Israel's assassination of two leaders of the Palestinian group Hamas. ISRAEL, OIL AND MUSLIMS When the scandal broke over photographs of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison outside Baghdad, the pictures reinforced Arab skepticism about Bush's argument that the aim of invading Iraq was to end human rights abuses and bring about a new era of freedom and democracy for Iraqis. Continued ... reuters.com