Discord in Bush team distressing allies, Congress [View All]

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Discord in Bush team distressing allies, Congress
By Jonathan S. Landay, Warren Strobel and William Douglas
Knight Ridder News Service

WASHINGTON - In the days before he assumed the presidency in 2001, George W. Bush liked to boast about the foreign policy "dream team" he had assembled.

Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of State Colin Powell, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld were all "smart people" who would compensate for the former Texas governor's lack of international experience.

"General Powell's a strong figure, and Dick Cheney's no shrinking violet, nor Condi Rice," Bush said in December 2000. "I view the four as being able to complement each other."

But after nearly three years in office, Bush's dream team is beset by infighting, back stabbing and maneuvering on major foreign policy issues involving North Korea, Syria, Iran and postwar Iraq. The result has been paralysis, inconsistency and a zigzagging U.S. policy that confuses lawmakers on Capitol Hill and disturbs America's friends, allies and would-be partners.


....snips....

One U.S. diplomat, who spoke on condition of anonymity, recalled Chinese officials' exasperation over the administration's stance on North Korea. "We actually don't care what your point of view is. Just have one," he quoted his Chinese counterparts as saying.

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"I'm not certain who assigns these or whether people just say 'I've got to say something' and just blurt it out," said Lugar, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Bush "really has to indicate a unified voice, his voice, to the American people and people abroad. They respect the president, and that's diluted somewhat by these other voices."

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"What happened was that Cheney and Rumsfeld essentially went on a crusade against terrorism, starting with Iraq, and Powell kept trying, mostly without success, to rein them in," said one official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. "Cheney is always in Bush's ear whispering 'terrorism, terrorism, terrorism.' He's obsessed."