Bush Leaves Israel, Seeks Arab Support

President In Kuwait Hoping To Attract Cooperation From Arab Leaders For Mideast Peace Deal

(CBS/AP)  The United States dampened hopes Friday for swift agreement on a Mideast peace deal, as Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice cautioned against expecting a “blinding flash” of Arab backing for cooperation with Israel, their historic enemy.

U.S. President George W. Bush began the next chapter of his eight-day Mideast journey in Kuwait, the first of five Arab countries on an itinerary aimed at pressing them to support Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas in any deal he strikes with Israel. Mr. Bush landed here after two days of talks in Israel and the Palestinian-governed West Bank. Traveling with the president, Rice said, “There will be a period of time, undoubtedly, in which the two sides continue to be very far apart.”

But, she said, “There is reason to be hopeful that they can make a major move to end the conflict.”

Arriving at the airport in Kuwait, the president got a ceremonial red-carpet welcome and was presented with a bouquet of flowers. But he saw nothing like the torrent of public adulation showered on his father in a visit 15 years ago.

The tiny, oil-rich nation at the top of the Persian Gulf was invaded by Iraq's Saddam Hussein and liberated by a U.S.-led war ordered by Bush's father in 1991. Now, Kuwait is a major hub for U.S. troops and equipment deployed to Iraq.

At a palace surrounded by palm trees, Mr. Bush met with the emir, Sheik Sabah Al Ahmed Al Sabah. He told Mr. Bush he was delighted to have him in Kuwait. “We are equally delighted to see you working on issues that are very important to all of us here,” Sheik Sabah said. It was not clear what issues he meant.

CBS News White House correspondent Peter Maer reports that, according to a senior official, Mr. Bush’s key message to leaders of Kuwait, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia comes down to “be nicer to Iraq and less nice to Iran.”

The U.S. wants stepped-up Arab support for the struggling Iraqi government, and hopes Gulf nations will do more to isolate Iran.

While many of these countries worry about Iran’s intentions, Maer notes that they also wants to keep the diplomatic and economic lines open to Tehran.

Like other Gulf Arab nations, Kuwait is nervous about tensions between the United States and Iran, and uneasy with the rise of Tehran. Kuwaitis also fear sectarian violence in Iraq could spill over their border.

Kuwait was conspicuous by its absence from Annapolis, Md., last year where Mr. Bush held a high-profile meeting and coaxed Israelis and Palestinians to launch their first peace talks in seven years. “They had their own reasons,” Rice said of Kuwait without elaboration. Iraq was the only other invited guest to skip Annapolis.

Close Arab allies including Egypt and Saudi Arabia have urged Mr. Bush to get more directly involved in Mideast peacemaking, saying the Palestinian plight spawns other conflicts and poisons public opinion throughout the region. But those states and others, skeptical about Bush's commitment to the grinding peace process, have adopted a wait-and-see attitude since Annapolis. The president's visit is partly intended to nudge them off the fence.

But Brookings Institution senior fellow Michael O'Hanlon says, "trying for Mideast peace is not the same thing as accomplishing it."

"When the president promises, or virtually guarantees this, he's raising the stakes in a way that has some potential down sides if we fail," the foreign policy analyst told CBS' The Early Show, "because often violence follows failed negotiations."

On Saturday, Mr. Bush will address U.S. forces at Camp Arifjan, the largest U.S. base in Kuwait and home to 9,000 American troops. He also will get a briefing on the war by Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, and Ambassador David Crocker, who is pressing Iraq's government to make progress on long-delayed political reconciliation.

The pair are due to give Congress a new update on the war in March, one that will be closely watched for whether deeper cuts in the U.S. troop level in Iraq are possible.

Mr. Bush will notify Congress on Monday of his intent to sell $20 billion in weapons, including precision-guided bombs, to Saudi Arabia, moving up the announcement to coincide with the president's arrival in Riyadh, a senior official told The Associated Press in Washington. The official announcement will kick off a 30-day review period during which Congress could try to block the sale, which has raised concern among some lawmakers.

An “Obligation” Of Arab States

In both Jerusalem and the West Bank, Mr. Bush said Arab states have an obligation to help Israel and the Palestinians in the negotiations and to move the process forward. Mr. Bush also wants Arab states to give Abbas in his internal fight with Palestinian militants.

Rice, traveling with the president on Air Force One, was asked whether Mr. Bush expected to get public statements of support from Arab leaders during this trip.

“Some of this will happen over time,” the secretary said, standing in the aisle of the press cabin on the president’s plane. “You know, there isn't going to be a blinding flash in any of this - not on this trip, not on the next trip. But this is a process that's moving forward.”

She said Arab states “took a big step” in coming to Annapolis. “And it was the first time that the Saudis were there under their own flag. ... I feel a strong sense of support from the Arab countries.”

Rice said Mr. Bush's trip, and his planned return to Israel in May, puts pressure on both sides to make difficult decisions about peacemaking. The two sides will have to resolve huge differences over conflicting claims to Jerusalem, the borders of a future Palestinian state, and the fate of Palestinian refugees and millions of their descendants, as well as settle many smaller issues.

Acknowledging the uncertainty of the negotiations, Rice said that “it's probably not possible at this point to say where they're going to be in May, let alone where they're going to be next week.”

Earlier, in Tel Aviv, Mr. Bush said he would return to the Mideast in May to mark ally Israel's 60th anniversary and to continue pushing for a peace pact between Israel and the Palestinians. It was an indication that hopes to crown his final year in office by putting a personal stamp on peacemaking efforts.

"There's a good chance for peace and I want to help you," Mr. Bush told Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Israeli President Shimon Peres at the airport here, where he boarded Air Force One, ending his visit to Israel and the Palestinian territories.

"Mr. Prime Minister and Mr. President, thank you very much for your invitation to come back. I'm accepting it now," Mr. Bush said on the tarmac.

During his two days of formal talks with Olmert, Peres and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, Mr. Bush laid out U.S. expectations, saying that the two sides needed to get serious talks started immediately. On his way to visit Sunni Arab allies, Mr. Bush said he'd would ask them to reach out to the Jewish state.

"I carry with me a message of optimism about the possibilities of a peace treaty," Mr. Bush said with the two Israeli leaders. "I will share with them my thoughts about you and President Abbas and the determination to work to see whether or not it's possible to come up with a peace treaty."

The nascent peace talks haven't made much headway, with old disputes about land and terrorism clouding the negotiators' early meetings.

Before leaving Israel, Mr. Bush toured holy sites near the Sea of Galilee. “Amazing experience” to walk where Jesus lived and preached, the president said.

Mr. Bush visited Capernaum, a site where Jesus is said to have performed miracles. The president gazed across the Sea of Galilee where Jesus is claimed to have walked on water. He toured the site of an ancient synagogue and joked and held hands with nuns outside the Church of the Beatitudes, a place where Jesus delivered his famed "Sermon on the Mount."

White House press secretary Dana Perino said Mr. Bush recalled passages in the early parts of the Book of Matthew about how Jesus calmed the Sea of Galilee. “He was reminded of how prayer helps him and has helped him calm rough seas in his life and certainly in the White House,” she said.

Also earlier, Bush became misty-eyed as he toured the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem. The president, who first visited the memorial in 1998 when he was governor of Texas, was wearing a yarmulke as he rekindled an eternal flame and placed a red-white-and-blue wreath on a stone slab that covers ashes of Holocaust victims taken from six extermination camps.

Mr. Bush called the memorial a "sobering reminder that evil exists and a call that when we find evil we must resist it."

The peace effort is the centerpiece of Mr. Bush's eight-day tour, but the balance of the trip is likely to focus as much on the uncertain ambitions of Shiite Iran. Mr. Bush's Sunni allies are nervous about the rise of Iran in their midst, and the threat its adherents may one day pose to their authoritarian regimes, but also are sometimes at odds with the United States over the best strategy to address or confront Tehran.

Some Arab states are worried by a new U.S. intelligence estimate downgrading the near-term threat that Iran will build nuclear weapons. Although Mr. Bush and other U.S. officials have said Iran remains a threat, allies with less powerful militaries fear that the United States is taking itself out of a potential fight. Mr. Bush says he wants to solve the Iran puzzle through diplomacy but takes no options off the table.

In an interview broadcast Friday, Mr. Bush said there could well be a long-term U.S. presence in Iraq, but it would be on the invitation of the Iraqi government. Asked on NBC's "Today" show whether that means U.S. troops would be in Iraq for at least another 10 years, Mr. Bush said, "It could easily be that. Absolutely."

[closethippy1]

"Some Arab states are worried by a new U.S. intelligence estimate downgrading the near-term threat that Iran will build nuclear weapons... allies with less powerful militaries fear that the United States is taking itself out of a potential fight. Mr. Bush says he wants to solve the Iran puzzle through diplomacy but takes no options off the table."

This paragraph from the article above shows how weird things can get in the US press when it comes to the Middle East. Arab regimes worried Iran''s threat has been downgraded? Since when???
And on top of that worried the US might pull itself out of contention? You can''t be serious!
The Arab view is so warped here is not even funny. To begin with, Arabs are not that concerned about Iran and if the US were to leave the area it''d be a huge relief for all concerned and not a worry at all.
This is ridiculous. I''ve been reading the Arab press and listening to their radio and there''''s nothing that remotely resembles the "worries" this article talks about.
They are instead pissed. Pissed at what happened in Iraq, pissed at what might happen with Iran, pissed at what is happening in Lebanon, pissed at what should happen with Syria, and pissed at what never happened in Palestine.
The US foreign policy in the region under Bush, and frankly under the last 4 American presidents, is a mess because it is based on assumptions such as described in this article.
Another good example of the corporate media coming to the President''s aid.

[pariah3]

im curious why is it cbs didnt allow readers to comment on bush''s comment on auschwitz? You know the same camp his family''s company IG Farben supplied and funded?
His words " the U.S. should have bombed it" seems like it could be viewed as support for covering up and destroying the evidence showing his family''s complicity in the deaths and suffering that occurred at these death camps.

[grazinggoat]

Mr. Bush visited Capernaum, a site where Jesus is said to have performed miracles. The president gazed across the Sea of Galilee where Jesus is claimed to have walked on water. He toured the site of an ancient synagogue and joked and held hands with nuns outside the Church of the Beatitudes, a place where Jesus delivered his famed "Sermon on the Mount."

-David Copperfield tricked so many people nowaday. Maybe David Copperfield is the son of Jesus. David performed so many (Miracles could we call them!). Shall we call him Son of God as well? Jesus has not been able to fly like David. Jesus has been able to walk over (Iced) water. See Baghdad just had its first snow storm... since a century. None of us was born to remember that event. Is it a miracle? Just write it down in a Guinness book of Miracles... and read it in 200 years from now, it''ll look very similar to us reading exceptional facts that happened 2000 yrs ago.

-It''s all fairytales mentioned and (exagerated) in those books. Believe me!

Walking-Liar, you can visit Copernaum and say hello to Copperfield... simple-minded people like to be entertained with fairytales and believe.

GG

[iceman_1960]

"The real Bush was on display when he aided annd abetted the Turkish whitewash of the Armenian Genocide."

Don"t tell me he did it to protect the troops.

If he was concerned about the safety of the troops, they wouldn"t even be there.

He did it to protect his beloved quagmire and keep it going.

That"s why he did it.

[samsel3]

Russia is the second largest supplier of oil on the planet, the Saudis are number one. After Saddam was removed they lost one of there sources and moved to Iran to fill the void. In exchange they also negotiated contracts to build multiple nuclear power plants in Iran. Russia is well aware of the Cheney plan for the Casapian Sea pipeline which will be cheaper to build if the US goes through Iran. Iran does not want to negotiate with the US on this pipeline. Cheney wants regime change, but Russia does not because it''s not in there economic interest. Thats the real deal !
Russia reneged on contracts with BP oil UK for new Siberian wells and also renegotiated contracts for existing BP production wells in Russia for less money. BP was not happy and teamed up with US oil interests for the Caspian Pipeline deal now under construction.

[samsel3]

Eilat-Ashkelon Pipeline Co. major Israeli oil company needs more crude and this is why the Turkey Israeli pipelines are going to be built......From there corporate site some info..".One of the reasons that triggered this project was the assumption that part of the crude oil produced in Russia, the Central Asian Republics or in the Caucasus and loaded at Black Sea ports can be marketed at competitive prices for distribution in Southern Asia and the Far East".

[iceman_1960]

"Emotional Bush Tours Holocaust Memorial"

Subheading:

"Calculating Handlers Advise Bush To Get Teary-eyed At Holocaust Memorial."

(The real Bush was on display when he aided annd abetted the Turkish whitewash of the Armenian Genocide.

That was the real Bush: callous and shallow.)

[samsel3]

Reuters UK December 30, 2007 Reports: "Bin Laden says U.S. seeks to exploit Iraqi Oil". OBL states: "America seeks, alongside it''''''''s agents in the region, to create an allied government...that would accept in advance the presence of major U.S. bases in Iraq and give the Americans all they wish of Iraqi Oil.

[samsel3]

One million barrels per day capacity for the Eilat Ashkelon pipeline where tankers are filled at the Red Sea port for transport to Asian markets. Currently tankers are unloaded at Ashkelon and pumped through Israel to Eilat a Red Sea terminal. The Turkey Israel pipelines project will save tanker transport costs to Ashkelon and increase market share for Caspian Sea oil. This is the purpose behind the Bush peace talks!

[samsel3]

January 9, 2007 Bush met with the president of Turkey on the 10th he was in Israel. The connection is the Turkey Israeli pipelines, the real purpose of the recent middle east peace summit . The actual story is the proposed oil pipelines that will be built down the coast from Turkey to Israel. Condi Rice is trying to broker this deal. BP oil, US oil interests and the Saudis all have a stake in that pipeline. Domonique Strauss- Khan managing director of the International Monetary Fund and Robert Zoellick president of the World Bank were in attendance. Big money won''''''''t finance the venture without stability in the region.
In the Daily telegraph, July 22, 2006 Condoleeza Rice stated her main objective in the middle east was not to push a ceasefire in Lebanon, but to cause an isolation of Syria and Iran. The strategic objective is all tied to oil and oil pipelines. In April of 2006 Israel & Turkey made their announcement which included four pipelines which will bypass Syria & Lebanon. The source of the oil is the BTC pipeline from the Caspian Sea Region. Shareholders in the BTC pipeline are: British Petroleum, AzBTC, Chevron, Statoil, TPAO, ENI, Total, Itochu, INPEX, Conoco-Phillips & Amerada Hess. Another very important factor on the war with Lebanon is that Israel will have a strategic role in protecting the pipeline and transportation corridor out of Ceyhan Turkey. The strategy will weaken Russian oil''s role in central asia and also isolate Iran.

[samsel3]

Posted by brianbwb at 08:31 AM : Jan 12, 2008...Brian I do not wish to alarm you, but the administration is very prepared for civil disorder. Since before the Afghan invasion US military bases like Fort Devens in Massachusetts are being used to train police departments across the country in dealing with civil unrest including training in how to take over and secure cities and towns and large populations. These programs have been kept secret and not even town or city officials are able to see the training materials...The real deal!!!!

[smtchcose]

This picture is like one of those old cold war Soviet Union ones of Brezhnev and some other old, fat leader kissing each other. And that''''s not even the worst of it; it''''s all the misery and corruption behind it that it stands for. Disgusting!

-------------------
I am American, very *** woman. A friend on the net tells me:"You are too hot!" I want to met a good man online. All are welcome to view my terriblly *** pics at Interracialloving.com under username "xhot". See you.

[brianbwb-2009]

"...allies with less powerful militaries fear that the United States is taking itself out of a potential fight."

Allies?

Other than Israel ("we own America, and the Americans know it")and Saudi Arabia, (home to the 9/11 hijackers)what "allies are you talking about?

[brianbwb-2009]

Posted by samsel3

We already know by now, and the rest of the world has known since the beginning that it was all aboit oil, and the chance to profit from war.

The question before us now is how can we, the "average citizen" create enough pressure on a corrupt legislature to hold those who caused this mess responsible, and make sure it cannot happen again?

I have e-mailed any and all senators and congress people who would accept my input, to initiate the accounting, as I think many others also have. If (as I suspect)our vote doesn''t bring action toward that goal, our next choice may well be civil disobedience on the scale like the anti Vietnam protests, and even more. Boycotts, pickets, the whole nine yards may have to be brought into play.

We all know the problem, now it is time to discuss solutions, as this won''t go away on its'' own volition, just because the twenty first century''s first Hitler is no longer in office.

[samsel3]

Posted by beehive21 at 07:54 AM : Jan 12, 2008....When China takes action to protect Iran ...you may be speaking Chinese........

[samsel3]

Posted by beehive21 at 07:54 AM : Jan 12, 2008.....The region has never wanted the British & USA in their face exploiting their oil. Look at the history of the wars between the Turks, Arabs & the British....and the great peacemaker T.E.Lawrence AKA as Lawrence of Arabia......

[beehive21-2009]

If the region did''nt want the US in there face, they should not have knocked down the Twin Towers.A century before mexico killed Davey, Sam and many others at the Alamo,we now own the southwest.When were done with the region we shall own a greater part of it.

[formrusmcsgt]

dubya, the hegemonic warmonger, now attempts to don the mantle of peacemaker.

Hilarious.

He will be as successful in this endeavor as he has been in his two never-ending wars.

[samsel3]

Months ago China said there would be dire consequences if the US interfered with there direct oil contracts with Iran. Both parties in the Congress should be very concerned with China''s growing war machine and need for oil. They are the real threat & the administration doesn''t care they are in control ! All that matters to them is BIG OIL and their corporate stock portfolios

[ajaxtheleast]

Attempting to isolate countries is a game to Bush.

But if he "isolates" enough of them and
..detrimentally so to their economy they just may consider this game to be a declaration of war.

And if one of these countries happens to be
Russia, . well, there may not be "war" as in
"third world" . . but a price will be payed.