Home > Bush under fire from US ex-envoys
"We’re not the good guys any more... We are
viewed as hypocritical. "
Former diplomat William Rogers
About 50 retired US diplomats have written to President
George W Bush to criticise current American policy
towards the Middle East. The former US envoys complain
that Mr Bush’s approach is losing the US "credibility,
prestige and friends".
They are critical of what they say is Washington’s
unabashed support for Israeli Prime Minister Ariel
Sharon.
The Middle East "Quartet" of the US, Russia, the UN and
EU meets shortly to discuss the stalled peace process.
It is likely to be a difficult meeting for the Quartet
which sponsored the plan known as the roadmap - a
process founded on negotiations and parallel, agreed
steps by Israelis and Palestinians.
The Quartet have divided views on Mr Sharon’s plan to
withdraw unilaterally from Gaza while retaining many
settlements in the West Bank - a plan endorsed last
month by the US president but now rejected by Mr
Sharon’s own Likud Party.
The BBC’s UN correspondent, Suzy Price, says the
Quartet’s high-level talks in New York will undoubtedly
see a renewed call for a return to the road map, but
seem unlikely to make any concrete progress.
Mr Bush’s backing for Mr Sharon’s Gaza plan was the
focus of much concern expressed in the American
diplomats’ letter.
Take heed
"We are going to have the worst of all possible
worlds," said Greg Thielmann, a former State Department
analyst who signed it.
"We have probably done irretrievable damage in the eyes
of the Arab world," Mr Thielmann told the BBC’s Today
programme.
"And yet we will not accomplish what seemed to be at
least one positive part of the plan, which was the
giving up on illegal settlements in the Gaza Strip."
The diplomats are planning a news conference on Tuesday
to go public with their opposition, according to the
American Educational Trust (AET), a foundation where
some of the former envoys are based.
"Our hope is that both political parties will take heed
and listen to the voices of experienced diplomats," the
AET said.
"Your unabashed support of Sharon’s extra-judicial
assassinations, Israel’s Berlin Wall-like barrier, its
harsh military measures in occupied territories and now
your endorsement of Sharon’s unilateral plans are
costing our country its credibility, prestige and
friends," the letter warned.
Israel says it has no choice but to kill militants
planning to carry out suicide attacks, and that its
West Bank barrier is for security only.
The signatories say they were inspired by a similar
letter written by 52 former British diplomats to UK
Prime Minister Tony Blair last week.
The organiser of the American missive, Andrew Killgore,
who served as US ambassador to Qatar from 1977 to 1980,
told the BBC: "We thought American diplomats were as
unhappy as British diplomats were over what the
president did."
He said Mr Bush should not "take away the right of the
Palestinians to return, or give Sharon the right to
take settlement blocks in the West Bank which will
hardly leave the Palestinians any contiguous
territory".
’Torpedo’
"It seems to torpedo the idea of a separate Palestinian
state," he added.
Mr Killgore said the letter was mainly about policy
towards Israel and the Palestinians, but it touched on
Iraq too.
"If anything Iraq is worse," he said.
William Rogers, who was under-secretary of state for
economic affairs in the mid-1970s, has not decided
whether to sign the letter yet, but said: "We’re not
the good guys any more and our foreign relations have
been and are being damaged. We are viewed as
hypocritical."
The BBC’s Jon Leyne in Washington said those in the
Bush administration who do support Mr Sharon might well
point out that the state department has always been a
sceptical supporter of Israel.
Mr Sharon himself has always made a point of dealing
directly with the White House.
There has been no response yet from the White House,
our correspondent says, though in the past, the
administration has been quick to savage its critics.
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