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Visited by a Host of Administrations Past, Bush Hears Some Chastening Words
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Issue
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| Contributor | RP |
| Last Edited | RP Jan 06, 2006 06:55pm |
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| Category | Event |
| Media | Newspaper - New York Times |
| News Date | Saturday, January 7, 2006 12:00:00 AM UTC0:0 |
| Description | Colin L. Powell said nothing - a silence that spoke volumes to many in the White House on Thursday morning.
His predecessor, Madeleine K. Albright, a bit stirred up after hearing an exceedingly upbeat 40-minute briefing to 13 former secretaries of state and defense about how well things are going in Iraq, asked President Bush whether, with the war "taking up all the energy" of his foreign policy team, he had let the nuclear programs in Iran and North Korea spin out of control and allowed Latin America and China policy suffer by neglect.
That was, it appears, one of the few heated moments during an unusual White House effort to bring some of its critics into the fold and provide a patina of bipartisan common ground to the strategy Mr. Bush has laid out in recent weeks for Iraq.
But if it was a bipartisan consultation, as advertised by the White House, it was a brief one. Mr. Bush allowed 5 to 10 minutes for interchange with the group - which included three veterans of the Vietnam era: Robert S. McNamara, Melvin R. Laird and James R. Schlesinger - before herding the whole group into the Oval Office for what he called a "family picture."
When he took the floor, Mr. Bush left no doubt that he believed his strategy to be the only path to victory, and he gave no hint, participants said, of self-doubt. "It would be a stretch to say he was really interested in many thoughts from around the table," said one former official, who asked not to be identified so that he could speak frankly about a private meeting with the president. |
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