ADN

White House slams top Dem's planned Syria visit




WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The White House has criticized House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's plans to stop in Syria next week during a Middle East trip that began Friday.

She will be the highest-ranking U.S. official to visit Syria since relations deteriorated between Damascus and Washington.

The United States has accused Syria of aiding the Sunni insurgency in western Iraq with weapons and fighters. Syria also is accused of supporting the militant extremist groups Hezbollah, a Shiite political party and militia, and Hamas.

"We do not encourage and, in fact, we discourage members of Congress to make such visits to Syria," said White House deputy spokeswoman Dana Perino. "This is a country that is a state sponsor of terror, one that is trying to disrupt the (Prime Minister Fouad) Siniora government in Lebanon and one that is allowing foreign fighters to flow through its borders to Iraq.

"I don't know what she is trying to accomplish, and I don't know if anyone in the administration has spoken to her about it," Perino said. "In general, we do discourage such trips."

Responding to a follow-up question, Perino added, "We think that someone should take a step back and think about the message that it sends ... to our allies."

Pelosi is scheduled to meet with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad next weekend while in Damascus, according to Imad Moustapha, Syria's ambassador to the United States. She will be the highest-ranking American to meet with a Syrian president since then-President Clinton met with the late Syrian President Hafez al-Assad in 1994.

Pelosi is expected to address Israel's Knesset on Sunday. Further details of the trip -- her second to the region as speaker of the House -- were withheld for security reasons, her office said.

A statement from Pelosi's spokesman, Brendan Daly, said: "As recommended by the Iraq Study Group, a bipartisan delegation led by Speaker Pelosi intends to discuss a wide range of security issues affecting the United States and the Middle East with representatives of governments in the region, including Syria."

State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said the administration has advised members of Congress that "it's not the right time to have those high-profile visitors to Syria."

However, McCormack said the State Department provided Pelosi with a briefing, and that the U.S. Embassy in Damascus has said it would help if needed.

Late last year, Democratic U.S. Sens. John Kerry and Christopher Dodd, both senior members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, met with Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad and challenged his government to play a more constructive role in the region.



Somebody needs to put this bitch on a leash

nice of them to conveniently leave out the fact that three republican congressmen were there like a week earlier....with the blessing the bush administration.

coverage of pelosi's visit was waaaaay overblown.

no offense, but referring to the Speaker of the House as a bitch...is but much.

she can't possibly do any more damage to America's foreign policy than this administration has done in the last five years.

The ROAD to DAMASCUS is filled with Terrorists -- too bad one didnt IED her Liberal Ass


and its 'BUTCH on a LEASH' she is afterall the representative of that breakaway Northern Cali State (San Francisco) that makes up their own Marriage and Man Boy Love Laws regardless of the Constitution and Federal Law

Hey Radio, they weren't there trying to set policy while undermining the sitting president of the United States. Their trips had been on the books for months and they weren't there as a polictical stunt like that bitch did.

QUOTE(Buffmaster @ Apr 11 2007, 11:36 PM) Hey Radio, they weren't there trying to set policy while undermining the sitting president of the United States. Their trips had been on the books for months and they weren't there as a polictical stunt like that bitch did.

U.S. Rep. Joe Pitts and two other Republican congressmen did not undermine the Bush administration by meeting with Syria's leader Sunday, despite going to Damascus against the president's wishes, Pitts said Wednesday.

Pitts contrasted his visit with that of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who has drawn strong criticism from President Bush for meeting with Syrian President Bashar Assad.

"We made it very clear in our meetings that we were the same (political) party of the president and we support the administration," Pitts said.

"Speaker Pelosi was coming as the opposition leader ¦ I doubt if the Speaker would say the same thing (to Assad) as we did."

"Dialogue is not a sign of weakness," Pitts said after returning home Wednesday. "It's a sign of strength."

(this was from a newspaper article)

--------------------------------

didn't the iraq study group also call for opening a dialogue with syria and iran?

as far as pelosi undermining the policy of a sitting president...do you really think the bush administration has any credibility in the middle east left?

i realize that syria and iran are states that support terrorism. at any other time, this country would be able to isolate them and threaten them with sanctions and military action. those two will need to be dealt with at some point.

but, that ain't gonna happen now. our military is stretched thin and bogged down in iraq. our diplomatic standing is in tatters. just look at how quiet the international community was when iran nabbed those british sailors. for god's sake, that was an illegal act and all the world did was sit on it ass and let britain and the u.s. condemn it.

you can yell all you want about political stunts....but, the fact of the matter is the bush administration is isolated now...domestically and internationally.

something has to change and somebody (republican or democrat...i don't care which party) has to lead for once....and do what's best for this country.

by the way...i am a registered republican.

Listing your source would be nice. Newspapers print stories on Bush lying to go to war, which is pure bullshit. The same people who are bitching now would be the same ones calling for his head for not going to war with the intel he had before him. The famous Address the Nation speech quoted British Intel on the Yellow Cake... is that a lie too? There's an movement creeping forward and it isn't pretty.

just google pitts and syria.

no conspiracy here. just a local newspaper covering its readers' congresssional representative.

as for the war....to me, it's not a matter of whether going to war was right or wrong. if iraq was the center of the "war on terrorism," why fight it on the cheap? if the president wanted to stake his legacy on this war, he should have fully committed to it.

the powell doctrine called for overwhelming force. when the u.s. liberated kuwait, more than a half-million troops were committed to handle a country the size of new jersey.

in iraq, we went in with about 150,000 to cover a country the size of california.

that was enough to win a war, but not even close to being what was needed to keep the peace and run a broken country. i could list ad nauseum the missteps that have occured in iraq over the last four years. but, that's besides the point.

the disaster in that country (hey look, insurgents can bomb the green zone!) is of epic proportions.

I'll admit that fast and thin was the wrong way to go.

that's the thing that bothers me....if we just went in with overwhelming force and laid down the law right off the bat, this insurgency would have been nipped in the bud.

i even think the surge would have been a great idea two years ago.

but, i have faith in petraeus. he's a hell of a general and he knows that the iraqis have to stand up for their country, if that mess is going to be fixed.