WTF is going on in the WH ? George makes sense but "corrected" by Bolton

[tocqueville]

This is related to the Lebanon/Israel crisis, but it's not what I want to discuss so I posted in GD. I hope the mods understand.

look at those press releases :

WASHINGTON (AFP) - US President George W. Bush said there would be a second UN resolution on the Middle East conflict to shape the mandate of the multinational force for Lebanon.

But White House officials quickly cautioned that he may have misspoken, saying they expected the new measure to focus on the disarmament of the Shiite militia Hezbollah -- though that would not necessarily exclude refinements of the force's mandate.

"There will be another resolution coming out of the United Nations, giving further instructions to the international force ... First is to get the rules of engagement clear so that the force will be robust to help the Lebanese," Bush said at a hastily announced press conference.

"One thing is for certain, is that when this force goes in to help Lebanon, Hezbollah won't have that safe haven or that kind of freedom to run in Lebanon's southern border," he said.

"In other words, there's an opportunity to create a cushion, a security cushion. Hopefully, over time Hezbollah will disarm," he said.

this was making perfect sense for the EU : a strong force, no mandate to disarm Hizbollah (internal Lebanese question) but right to use preemptive force.

I have lost the link to that one, the release disappears on Yahoo within one hour (I was interrupted).
Maybe some DUER has a link to the statements above (press conference)

Le Monde quotes roughly "George Bush defends France"

http://www.lemonde.fr/web/article/0,1-0@2-734511,36-804993@51-759824,0.html

"La France est une amie. La France est une alliée, a-t-il dit. Le président Chirac a dit très clairement que la démocratie au Liban est importante. Nous avons des intérêts communs avec la France. C'est un acteur très important de la scène internationale et elle sera un acteur très important au Liban." (GW)

Deux jours plus tôt, le porte-parole de la Maison Blanche, Tony Snow, un ancien présentateur de la chaîne conservatrice Fox News, avait été obligé d'expliquer en détail que les Français "ne traînaient pas les pieds", comme la presse américaine les en accusait, mais qu'ils tentaient d'obtenir des garanties. "Il ne s'agit pas seulement de dire : donnez-moi 5 000 types avec des bottes..., a-t-il dit. Vous me voyez ici en train de défendre les Français. Cela, c'est une information."

(Tony Snow : Here I am defending the French, this is news)


but sadly somewhat later :

Bolton stressed that the U.S. "road map" includes full implementation of Resolution 1559 adopted by the Security Council in 2004, which calls for the disarmament of all militias in Lebanon — including Hezbollah.

"So the question of dealing with Hezbollah — or whether they deal with themselves by becoming a real political party instead of a terrorist group — is obviously on the agenda," he said.

Bolton said the initial force "can be deployed now but it's obviously closely linked" to disarming Hezbollah.

" And we want the disarming of Hezbollah to be accomplished rapidly so that the democratically elected government of Lebanon can establish full control over its territory," he said.

Bolton said an expanded force could be deployed and then have its mandate changed later. (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060821/ap_on_re_mi_ea/mideast_un

so in the end back to a force with a new mandate (Chapter 7 ?) to disarm the Hizbollah... which of course is a completely different story... because the results of the Bolton statement are probably a "mission impossible", which means soon a new war in the region. And the blame put on "those cowardly French"...

SO MY QUESTION IS : WHY THESE DIFFERENT SIGNALS FROM THE WH ? HAS GEORGE BEEN OUTMANOEUVRED BY THE PNAC ? ARE THEY SEVERAL GROUPS FIGHTING WITHIN THE CORE OF THE US TOP ?

my excuses for the typos

[brentspeak]

1. There have been rare times when Bush has demonstrated

the capability of being his own man and not a tool of the people around him. For instance, in Ron Suskind's book about Paul O'Neill, O'Neill relates a brief moment during an advisor meeting when Bush expressed a genuine interest in what O'Neill had to say about possible massive deficits should Bush's proposed tax cut for the rich go through. But then Karl Rove interrupted O'Neill, reminded Bush of "the need for us to stick to our principles", and that was that: Bush was back to being a tool.

[louis-t]

2. Who's in charge of this train wreck?

There seems to be a lot of dissent among the neocons. I think every one of them thinks he (or she) is the REAL president.