Washington Week Show - # 4435
Washington Week Show - # 4435
Washington Week Show # 4435 - George W Bush European Excursion. Host Gwen Ifill, guests include Richard Kyle, David Sanger, Doyle McManus, Gloria Borger.
Washington Week Show - # 4435
Show opening with Host Gwen Ifill
Washington Week Show - # 4435
Composite footage (unclean) with Washington Week title and text : President George W. Bush getting out of black limo shaking hands with official, President Bush and Laura Bush waving from Air Force One (wearing coats), President Bush standing next to Jacques Chirac, and European leaders, President Bush saying "No temporary debate, no passing disagreement of governments, no power on earth will ever divide us." President Bush shaking hands with Vladimir Putin, Iraqi Prime Minister, blank United States Treasury checks being printed, three elderly women standing at counter of office, AARP building, Chamber of Commerce building.
Washington Week Show - # 4435
DO NOT USE PBS promo
Washington Week Show - # 4435
Host Gwen Ifill introduces discussion of President George W. Bush and his trip to Europe.
Washington Week Show - # 4435
President George W. Bush and Jacques Chirac seated together
Washington Week Show - # 4435
President George W. Bush walking outside with German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder (Gerhard Schroder). It is snowing.
Washington Week Show - # 4435
President George W. Bush and German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder (Gerhard Schroder) at press conference.
Washington Week Show - # 4435
Host Gwen Ifill introduces discussion of President George W. Bush and his trip to Europe.
Washington Week Show - # 4435
February 24, 2005. President George W. Bush at podium "Democracies always reflect a country's customs, and culture and I know that. Yet democracies have certain things in common, they have a rule of law and protection of minorities, a free press and a viable political opposition. I was able to share my concerns about Russia s commitment in fulfilling these universal principals; I did so in a constructive and friendly way."
Washington Week Show - # 4435
Host Gwen Ifill introduces discussion of President George W. Bush and his trip to Europe with guests.
Washington Week Show - # 4435
Gwen Ifill. So Dick, were there any fences mended on this trip? Richard Kyle. I think so. The President had good and friendly meetings with Schroder and President Chirac of France two of his most vehement critics over the war in Iraq. Gwen Ifill. The President ate french fries. Richard Kyle. And the President ate french fries. We remember those were banned temporarily on Air Force One, renamed freedom fries. So we are back to calling them the name most epicureans would know them by. But in terms of, especially on Iraq, there really wasn t much to show for that. A very, very small contribution, about 2 million euros, that worked out somebody calculated to 4 tenths of 1 percent of the supplemental budget request the President sent to Congress. France is now contributing one single military officer, already at NATO who is going to apparently move down the hall a few doors and start coordinating as yet undetermined. So nothing has much changed on Iraq. There was on Iran a little more cooperation. The President said after his meeting with Gerhard Schroder that he had heard the carrot and stick argument again, face to face from Chirac, Prime Minister Blair and also Chancellor Schroder. And said that he was going to come home and think about that and think about the advice he had been given by these men.
Washington Week Show - # 4435
Gwen Ifill. So the President was being almost conciliatory, even though for instance he talked about Russia having to be true to democracy, when he stood next to Putin he was kind of circuitous in the way that he scolded him almost. When I said the happy talk stopped, how did that happen? David Sanger. Remember four years ago, when President Bush first met Vladimir Putin, they came together after a backdrop of a campaign in which President Bush had said as a candidate that we had been far too close to Russia s leaders. And then he said he looked into his eyes and glimpsed his soul. Well this time it seems he looked into his eyes and glimpsed and old KGB agent. He was very cautious, as you saw before. He was very polite in his description publicly of their concerns. But in private administration officials have been quite concerned that Putin is taking things straight back to an era of centralization, of restrictions on press freedom, and they don t know what leverage they have to stop this. And it s not clear right now that they have many.
Washington Week Show - # 4435
Gloria Borger. There were two different headlines though. The New York Times talking about the tense meeting. The Washington Post portrayed it perhaps as a little bit less tense. The President of course said it was a frank discussion. So can you tell us, you were there, not in the room, but you were there, what was it like between those two really? Richard Kyle. The President promised probably six times before going into this meeting that he was going to have a very frank exchange with Putin. Administration officials tell me that he absolutely did. But there was some time spent too, not only in the private meeting, but in the bigger group meeting, talking about the incentives Russia has in terms of economics, to halt this slide away from democracy. Perhaps the most significant thing that came out of the meeting with Putin is the announcement that the US is really going to accelerate the push to get Russia into the WTO. We ve seen battles before; we know the benefits it can bring to governments and countries that are trying to kind of move to the next level economically. Gwen Ifill. The World Trade Organization, for the 5 viewers who don t know what that is. Richard Kyle. And Putin is obviously, that is something he s worked hard on, it is something he has made clear to the President in the past that it is something he wants.
Washington Week Show - # 4435
Doyle McManus. I d like to ask about Iran because this is a place where the American position and the European position are quite different. The Europeans want to go to Iran and offer them positive incentives for stopping their nuclear programs. President Bush going into this trip said no way. Now he comes out of it saying well the good news is our goals are in the same place and he s going to listen what was the phrase you used David? He s going to think about what he heard? Gwen Ifill. And before you answer that David, let s listen to some of words the President actually used. Because the threat of nuclear proliferation in Iran was the clear subtext of this trip. Here is what the President say Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday.
Washington Week Show - # 4435
February 21, 2005. President George W. Bush says "The Iranian regime must end its support for terrorism and must not develop nuclear weapons."
Washington Week Show - # 4435
February 22, 2005 President George W. Bush says "This notion that the United States is getting ready to attack Iran is simply ridiculous, having said that all options are on the table."
Washington Week Show - # 4435
February 23, 2005 President George W. Bush says says "Diplomacy is just beginning, Iran is not Iraq."
Washington Week Show - # 4435
Host Gwen Ifill. It s ridiculous, but all options are on the table. David Sanger, parse those words for us. David Sanger. That means it s ridiculous because we re tied up. It s ridiculous because we haven t yet proven that they have a nuclear weapons program. But Doyle got right at the central issue, which is the Europeans see this problem a little bit differently than President Bush does. At 30,000 feet we have the same goal which is nobody want Iran with a nuclear weapon. But the Europeans say that the Iranians have the right to go have commercial nuclear program under the nuclear non-proliferation treaty which they signed. There was an interesting moment on the trip where President Bush mischaracterized what Iran had agreed to. He said they signed a treaty and agreed never to enrich uranium. Actually the treaty gives them the right to enrich uranium as long as it s inspected, as long as they fully disclose and they had not fully disclosed. They had hidden a lot of programs. But that tells you what the different mindset there is. George Bush doesn t want Iranians anywhere near uranium. And you can understand why. The Europeans are willing to live with it as long as they have what they say are assurances that they re not going to use it for weapons.
Washington Week Show - # 4435
Gloria Borger. And what about the Russians and Syria and their relationship with Syria? Did the President make any headway on that? Richard Kyle. Well, it s a real point of contention, Gloria, selling weapons to Syria at a time when everybody is concerned about what Syria is doing in Lebanon especially with the investigation going on into the assassination of former Prime Minister. Safe to say, no breakthrough was made there at all.
Washington Week Show - # 4435
Gwen Ifill. And the Europeans, that he was also talking to on this trip, want to sell arms to China. David Sanger. Well that s the next interesting layer in this because the Europeans put a ban on selling arms to China in 1989 right after Tiananmen Square. So they ve some back now and said look different leaders in China, different era, much more globalized country this ban makes no sense. Well the US is looking at the situation, what do they see? They see a China that is much more powerful than it s been before and can impose a much greater threat to Taiwan than ever before. And if there is a conflict with Taiwan, it s not the Europeans who are getting stuck in the straight there, it s us. So again they were completely separated on this. The President knows he is going to lose this argument. The Europeans are going to go ahead with this. And as one European diplomat said to me this week, I didn t hear the President stand up and say he was going to block the sale of the IBM personal computer division to a Chinese company. But he does want to block our technology.
Washington Week Show - # 4435
Doyle McManus. So if you sum all this up, this was the great reconciliation tour. This was George W Bush s charm offensive. We re now talking nicely with the Europeans again and they re talking nicely with us but what you re telling us are the big issues Iran, Iraq, exports to China we still have a lot of disagreements. David Sanger. I didn t see much movement in the specifics with the possible exception that the President did reach an agreement with Mr. Putin on some acceleration of taking out the old Soviet nuclear not arms, but fuel.
Washington Week Show - # 4435
Gwen Ifill. Can we circle back to Putin for a minute since you brought it up? It seems that of all the meetings the President had on this trip, including Chirac and Schroder obviously they had a lot of making up to do that it was very important that he walked some sort of line with Vladimir, as he called him, and George. So why is Putin so important to the President? Richard Kyle. Well one reason is that, especially given recent history with Schroder and Chirac, minus Tony Blair there is no one else in the European theater for the sake of this argument we ll put Russia in the camp of Europe he needs Putin to build consensus and to get things done. Gloria Borger. But this is a President who made such a point in his State of the Union address talking about the Bush Doctrine, if you will, about democracy and how he stands with those who stand for democracy. And it was very clear that Putin s vision of democracy is a little bit different. Richard Kyle. And that s very interesting and it s something that Putin will likely bring up in the future if this spat continues because we remember President Bush at the Red Sea Summit and last year in Istanbul, spiking to a largely Muslim audience, took pains to say democracy comes in many forms. We re not interested in imposing our version of democracy on anybody. Putin now can say well if that s true then we need to do this my own way. And that was the point that Putin was brought up in his news conference with the President yesterday.