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| Boy George has a solution for everything? |
paraclete |
07/18/06 |
Bush's solution: 'stop doing this s---'
A microphone picked up an unaware George W Bush saying that Syria should press Hezbollah to "stop doing this shit" and that his secretary of state may go to the Middle East soon.
The US president was talking privately to British Prime Minister Tony Blair during a lunch at the Group of Eight (G8) summit in St Petersburg about an upsurge of violence in the Middle East.
Neither immediately realised a microphone was transmitting their candid thoughts on that and other issues.
"I think Condi (Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice) is going to go (to the Middle East) pretty soon," Bush said.
Blair replied: "Right, that's all that matters, it will take some time to get that together".
Rice headed back to the United States after the G8 summit closed yesterday and will decide when to make her Middle East trip, a State Department spokeswoman said.
Blair added: "See, if she (Rice) goes out she's got to succeed as it were, where as I can just go out and talk".
Bush replied: "See, the irony is what they need to do is get Syria to get Hezbollah to stop doing this shit and it's over".
Blair eventually noticed the microphone and hastily switched it off but not before the conversation had reached news media.
When Bush learned the microphones were on, he asked what he had said, and after being shown a transcript "he rolled his eyes and laughed," White House spokesman Tony Snow said aboard Air Force One returning to Washington.
While his language was salty, the message from Bush was what it had been throughout the summit - that Syria is supporting Hezbollah guerrillas in southern Lebanon and should force them to stop shelling Israel and return abducted Israeli soldiers.
US officials believe that if Hezbollah did so, Israel's military strikes on Lebanon might stop.
Bush also seemed to complain about UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan wanting an immediate ceasefire to stop the violence between Israel and Hezbollah.
"I don't like the sequence of it," Bush said.
"His attitude is basically ceasefire and everything else happens."
Blair said: "I think the thing that is really difficult is you can't stop this unless you get this international presence agreed".
A G8 statement yesterday suggested the UN Security Council should consider an international security and monitoring presence on the Lebanon-Israel border, an idea Blair is pushing.
Later, Bush said he felt like telling Annan to telephone Syrian President Bashar al-Assad "and make something happen".
"We're not blaming Israel and we're not blaming the Lebanese government," he said.
Snow said Bush was reiterating his view and Hezbollah should return the soldiers and stop firing rockets before talking about a ceasefire.
"He likes Kofi Annan and he is not only happy to work with him but has been supportive from the very start of the UN mission to the region," Snow said.
The United States would wait and see what the UN recommends about a stabilisation force, he said.
"I think it's awfully premature to be talking about US troops," Snow said.
"Let's just wait and see what the UN has to recommend ... and the means by which they hope to achieve it."
The discussions were not about "armies marching in and trying to fight Hezbollah," Snow said.
"What they're looking for is a stabilisation force to try to be able to support the Lebanese army. The Lebanese army clearly is not capable at this point of keeping peace in southern Lebanon."
Reuters
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Clarification/Follow-up by tomder55 on 07/18/06 10:23 am:
sometimes the simple solution is the correct one .
Clarification/Follow-up by Judgment_Day on 07/19/06 12:02 am:
Dim that's exactly why I said the dreks going to hit Syria's fan soon. Of course their connected.
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