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Syria 'Getting Message' on Iraq, Bush Says - Empire? - Global Policy Forum Syria 'Getting Message' on Iraq, Bush Says
By John Tierney
New York Times
April 21, 2003
President George W. Bush emerged from Easter services on Sunday with unusually peaceful words for Syria, which his administration has accused of aiding Iraq during the war and sheltering its leaders as fighting ended. "They're getting the message that they should not harbor Ba'ath Party officials," Bush said at a military base in Fort Hood, Texas, where he attended church and met with two helicopter pilots who had been prisoners of war in Iraq.
"I'm confident the Syrian government has heard us," he said. "And I believe it when they say they want to cooperate with us." Bush's comments on Syria were the most conciliatory in weeks, and they followed a determined effort by the administration to ratchet up pressure on the Damascus government. Senior administration officials have accused Syrian officials, who are also Ba'athist, of harboring Iraqi party leaders who fled across the border.
While hailing the "positive signs" in Syria, Bush acknowledged that establishing democracy in Iraq "is going to be hard." Some administration officials have spoken of a transition in Iraq that would take less than a year, but on Sunday an influential Republic lawmaker, Senator Richard Lugar of Indiana, dismissed such predictions.
"I would think at least we ought to be thinking of a period of at least five years time" to develop democracy, Lugar, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said on NBC News. Lugar, who before the war accused the administration of devoting too little effort to postwar planning, said that Iraq should not be permitted to become an autocratic theocracy like Iran.
During his visit to Fort Hood, Bush said he did not know if Saddam was alive or dead. "If he is alive, I would suggest he not pop his head up," Bush said. Discussing the possibility of any Iraqi leaders seeking refuge in Syria, he said, "When we think there is somebody there or know somebody is there, we of course will pass on the name and fully expect the Syrian government to hand the person over."
Defense Department officials, citing intelligence reports, say at least seven former Iraqi officials are now in Syria, including a former official of Iraq's Republican Guard and Special Republican Guard who is No. 8 on the American wanted list. Secretary of State Colin Powell said last week that the United States has provided Syria with the names of Iraqis believed to be in the country, and was waiting for a response from Damascus.
Over the last week, Defense Department officials reported some positive signs from Syria, including what they said had been a closing of at least some Syrian border posts. So far, there has been no indication that Syria might have taken action against any former Iraqi officials. On Sunday, however, U.S. congressmen said that Syria's leader, Bashar Assad, had assured them that his government would identify and expel any former Iraqi leaders found to have taken refuge in his country.
The congressmen, Representatives Nick Joe Rahall, Democrat of West Virginia, and Darrell Issa, Republican of California, met with Assad in Damascus, the Syrian capital. They repeated what they said had been the Syrian leader's assurances in a television interview on ABC News.
"We got a specific commitment that he will not harbor any war criminals and he will expel any that get into the country," Rahall said in the television interview. "And we're conveying that back to the United States and hopefully we can count on him to enforce that promise."
Senator Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut, a Democratic presidential candidate, said there were "hopeful" signs that Syria was beginning to cooperate in tracking down Iraqi fugitives. If Syria ultimately refused to help the United States, he said on CBS News, "We should use every part of our skill and bravery to go in and capture or kill those Saddam Hussein loyalists ourselves."
James Woolsey, director of the Central Intelligence Agency under President Bill Clinton, criticized Assad for being "really over the line" last month by raising the prospect of terrorist attacks against American troops in Iraq. "He is on the side of the terrorists and those who would, I think, like to continue to run totalitarian regimes in the Middle East," Woolsey said during an appearance on Fox News.
Good chance on Korea crisis
Bush said ahead of U.S. talks with China and North Korea that he saw a "good chance" of resolving a crisis over North Korea's nuclear ambitions through multilateral diplomacy, Reuters reported from Fort Hood. Bush told reporters Sunday that China, which is to host the talks expected for Wednesday through Friday, had taken on a key responsibility in helping to ensure the Korean Peninsula was free of nuclear weapons, a goal supported by Japan and South Korea. "I believe that all four of us working together have a good chance of convincing North Korea to abandon her ambitions to develop nuclear arsenals," he said.
Bush appeared to brush aside a flap Friday over a North Korean statement that suggested Pyongyang had begun reprocessing spent nuclear fuel rods which could provide materials for atomic weapons. The statement had raised speculation the talks in Beijing could be scrapped, but U.S. officials later said the statement appeared to have been mistranslated.
Asked about the talks, Bush said, "China is assuming a very important responsibility, and that is that they will work toward a nuclear weapons-free peninsula. And now that they are engaged in the process it makes it more likely that's going to occur," he said.
He said the United States was working with China, Japan and South Korea toward a goal of a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula. A multilateral approach to the crisis - rather than the direct U.S.-$ North Korea engagement that Pyongyang had been demanding - has been key to the U.S. strategy.
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