Cheney Set To Depart On Mideast Mission

Vice President Will Reach Out To Moderate Arab Leaders For Help In Stabilizing Iraq

(AP)  Vice President Dick Cheney is reaching out to moderate Arab leaders for help in bringing stability to Iraq, a mission that will include pleas for postwar support for minority party Sunnis.

Cheney departs Tuesday on a weeklong mission to the Middle East, right after a visit to the region by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

While Rice's trip had a wide-ranging agenda that included other tensions in the region, administration officials said Cheney would focus largely on the next steps in Iraq.

Cheney's first stop will be Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates. Other announced stops include Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan. Cheney also will visit the aircraft carrier John C. Stennis in the Persian Gulf.

What can Cheney bring to the region that Rice couldn't?

A senior administration official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to discuss the trip publicly, said President Bush asked Cheney to go because of his close ties with leaders in each of the four countries.

But some Mideast experts outside the administration suggested that Cheney's visit also might be an attempt to try to clear up what might be viewed as mixed messages from Rice by some leaders in the region.

"Some of these people wonder if Condi Rice really speaks for the president when she decides she's going to talk to the Syrians, or when she agrees to go to a conference that includes the Iranians," said David Mack, a retired diplomat who was deputy assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern Affairs and a consultant to the bipartisan Iraq Study group.

"They wonder if the president is going to pull out the rug from under her. The vice president, who is generally identified as having opposed a lot of the things that we've been increasingly doing, can assure them that she speaks for the president as well," said Mack, now vice president of the Middle East Institute, a group devoted to fostering knowledge of the region.

Rice was in the neighborhood attending an international conference on Iraq in Sharm el-Sheik, Egypt, attended by representatives of both Syria and Iran. She met on the sidelines for 30 minutes with Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Moallem, but had no face-to-face contact with the Iranian foreign secretary.

In particular, the senior administration official said, Cheney will appeal to King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, King Abdullah II of Jordan and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak to use their influence to help rein in Sunni violence against Shiites in Iraq as well as charting ways to better protect Sunnis from violence at the hands of militant Shiites.

With less than two years left in the Bush-Cheney administration, the vice president has retained close ties to the region.

He got to know many leaders as defense secretary to the elder President Bush in the first Gulf War, then nurtured those relationships as chief executive officer of Halliburton, the oil-services company now in the process of moving many of its operations from Houston to Dubai in the UAE. Halliburton has many oil-related ties to the region, then and now.

In part, Mr. Bush is retracing some of the steps of a March 2002 tour of the Middle East that was aimed at giving Arab states a heads-up on possible U.S. military action against Iraq.

Cheney's trip will build on Rice's visit to the region, said White House spokeswoman Dana Perino. "We have challenges in the region, and it's important that everyone be working together in order to solve them," she said.

But Cheney's influence there is waning, suggested Aaron David Miller, a former State Department adviser on Mideast issues to both Republican and Democratic administrations.

"No visit by Dick Cheney with 18 months to go in the Bush administration can serve to either supplement or somehow make policies ... any more effective," said the former career diplomat. "I spent 25 years going on trips with secretaries of states and presidents, and I'll tell you one thing: One trip doesn't make much of a dent, even if the circumstances weren't as grim as they are."

No longer is the United States seen as "tough, powerful and credible," said Miller. "We are perceived to be failing. And, at some point, those leaders out there — personal relations with Cheney notwithstanding — are going to begin to make their own plans for the end of the Bush administration."

On Cheney's 2002 tour — which also included stops in Israel, Oman, Yemen, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain and Turkey — he found little support for an invasion of Iraq and considerable concern among Arab leaders that the U.S. wasn't doing more to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian dispute.

Cheney went to Saudi Arabia in November 2006 for private talks with King Abdullah.

Judith Kipper, a Mideast expert at the Council on Foreign Relations, a think tank, said she thinks Iran may end up trumping other items on Cheney's agenda.

"I do think people in the region are nervous. Iraq is disintegrating. And in the cold war of words between Iran and the U.S., the United States is going back and forth in a way that could become a miscalculation, a misstep," she said.

Still, while Cheney "is not the favorite U.S. politician out there," his visit can help address Arab-state complaints that the United States does not consult enough with them, Kipper said, adding that "the vice president always has more clout than any secretary in the Cabinet."

[toddpw01]

Just sign on the dotted line Iraqis, all your troubles will be over once you give us the oil.

[neoconrcrazy]

What ? He's not stopping over in Iraq to see his "democracy" ?

Gee, Dikk, all those millions who voted will be disappointed!

Just think, you could take a walk through downtown Bagdad, like mccain, and have flowers strewn at your feet !

But guys like you without ballz, who send real men to do what you refused to do during Nam - can't be expected to have any courage.

Cheney, you are disgrace to this country - you are a disgrace to humankind.

[neoconrcrazy]

What ? He's not stopping over in Iraq to see his "democracy" ?

Gee, Dikk, all those millions who voted will be disappointed!

Just think, you could take a walk through downtown Bagdad, like mccain, and have flowers strewn at your feet !

But guys like you without ballz, who send real men to do what you refused to do during Nam - can't be expected to have any courage.

Cheney, you are disgrace to this country - you are a disgrace to humankind.

[randalds]

-Funny one! Randy, were you in the travel and tours industry before? Sounds like you were.
Posted by grazinggoat at 11:12 PM : May 08, 2007

lol! Actually I was a hotel manager for several years and I'm sure I could hook the Dic*kster up with a world tour he'd never forget. Starting with an un-escorted tour of Sadr City! LOL.

[randalds]

How about an air tour of Afghanistan. You know, just to check up on the progress. Cheney could have the pilot fly really low and slow, say about 200ft and just short of stall speed, just so he gets a good view. Of course to really see how things are going he'll have to fly over Taliban and al-Qaeda positions too, nice and low and nice and slow. I mean LOW and very slow! I can't over emphasize the importance of that enough. Really low....really really slow....right over their positions....in broad daylight....with really loud engines...low....slow....again and again.....

[mh4cbs1]

Dear Cheney,

Please do the world a big favor and do not come back. Without your greedy slimy hands on Bush puppet strings the world instead may move towards peace and compassion.
Perhaps we will not subsidize the Oil industry while they make $40 Billion in quarterly PROFITS.
Perhaps we will not continue to LIE our way into profitable imperial WARs.
Perhaps we will no continue to give massive tax cuts to the super wealthy, while hard working families struggle just to get by,

Some may miss your sneering lies. Yes Cheney, you murderous thug, stay in Iraq, your "democracy" so long as they give us the Oil we want. Walk the streets. See how safe things are after you LIED your way into your needless War.

JAIL CHENEY JAIL BUSH Murderous Thugs who LIED us into Iraq.

[grazinggoat]

Awww come on Dic*khead Cheney! Show some real balls! Go back to Afghanistan again! PLEASE! Next time tell the pilot to take off just a little bit slower though. I mean you don't want them to get the idea that you're a coward who runs, do you? A nice long slow taxi this time. Show 'em you're not scared to go back there once more!
Posted by RandalDS at 05:52 PM : May 08, 2007

-Funny one! Randy, were you in the travel and tours industry before? Sounds like you were.

[mikekleber]

Hey D!ck, Why don't you just stay over there and turn that country around all by yourself. You've done one hell of a job over here in the US turning our country around. Problem is, you turned it in the wrong direction. Why you're over there, join the soldiers in fighting the cause that is making you very wealthy. I realize when you were draft age, you got out of going several times because you were too busy. Stay over there and experience first hand the mess you created. Talk to the Iraqi people. Look first hand at all of the death and misery you created. Tour hospitals and see all of the children who are handicapped for life in a hell hole of a country. I'm certain you will be proud of your social experiment all in the name of money for you and your buddies. Don't even worry about coming back. Our country will never miss you. My only hope is that you may realize the misery you caused, and the families you destroyed.

[grazinggoat]

Thank God we have a vice president with balls....not some little whimpy defeatist lib
Posted by b48151 at 02:17 PM : May 08, 2007

-Thanks God we have an hypocrit vice-president. He goes to UAE and other Arab Golf countries to kiss their feet in order to collaborate and then goes on the Stennis to tell Mission Accomplished: without mentioning the boooty lickings...

-An other paste worth mentioning: ...mission that will include pleas for postwar support for minority party Sunnis.

-This means: Saudis, now you take care of the Iraqi Sunnis, Iran is taking care of the Shiites and Israel is taking care of the Kurds. And Iraq is no more. Just pie parts being devided and mission accomplished.

[toldyouso21]

The time is NOW to establish an international peace force in Iraq lead by Egypt that will integrate then replace the US forces on the front lines.
Posted by macusweil at 10:05 PM : May 08, 2007

won't ever happen--in the first place, NO ONE wants to clean up the mess the United States made and volunteered itself for. This is our problem, the rest of the world would just as soon see us choke on it--if it was not for the fact that the Iraqis pay the heaviest price.

In the second place, Egyptians (and most other Moslems) are not about to enter a sectarian conflict that could also create counter eruptions within their own populations. Remember, that no matter what side Arabs are on, they are entering the war of the infidel (the US) and they will have to fight to stop one side or another. If like us, they switch from Shia support to Sunni support when it suits them--then they run the risk (as we do) of being attacked by both sides. In addition, since Arab countries are almost 100% Moslem, the stand the risk of increased deadly attacks within their own borders as members of various sects retaliate against each other. No Arab country would send soldiers--they would be fools to do so. Financial aid--maybe--blood? This is our mess, we need to clean it up ourselves.