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| By israelinsider staff October 16, 2004 |
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Brent Scowcroft, national security adviser to President George H.W. Bush, slammed the current president's handling of foreign policy in an interview published this week in The Financial Times, saying that the current President Bush is "mesmerized" by Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.
"Sharon just has him wrapped around his little finger," Scowcroft said. "I think the president is mesmerized." He added: "When there is a suicide attack, Sharon calls the president and says, 'I'm on the front line of terrorism,' and the president says, 'Yes, you are ...' He [Sharon] has been nothing but trouble."
Although Bush has been supportive of Sharon's plan to withdraw from the Gaza Strip, Scowcroft said he warned U.S. National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice that this is a ruse to prevent the creation of a Palestinian state, an interpretation validated by the recent interview with Sharon's key adviser Dov Weissglas, who bragged of his close relationship with the woman he calls "Condi."
"When I first heard Sharon was getting out of Gaza," Scowcroft said, "I was having dinner with Condi and she said: 'At least that's good news,' " Scowcroft recounted. "And I said: 'That's terrible news.... Sharon will say: 'I want to get out of Gaza, finish the wall [the Israeli security barrier] and say I'm done.'"
Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, asked about Scowcroft's remarks on Fox TV's "Your World," said that "I have the greatest respect for Brent Scowcroft" but that Bush had gotten Sharon to attend a summit in 2003 with the Palestinian prime minister, and that Sharon has said he is committed to the U.S.-backed peace plan known as the road map.
"Whatever reluctance Mr. Sharon had, he was there," Powell said. "And ever since, he has reaffirmed his commitment, notwithstanding statements by others," an apparent reference to the remarks of Weissglas.
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