U.S.: Olmert NEVER asked us to abstain from UN vote on Gaza truce

[Poll_Blind]

From Haaretz:

The U.S. State Department on Tuesday flatly rejected an assertion by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert that he had convinced the Bush administration to abstain from last week's United Nations resolution calling for an immediate truce in the Gaza Strip.

State Department spokesman Sean McCormack also denied that the abstention embarrassed Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

McCormack said the comments attributed to Olmert "are wholly inaccurate as to describing the situation, just 100-percent, totally, completely not true" and suggested that the Israeli government might want to clarify or correct the record. Olmert said Monday that Rice had been embarrassed by orders from President George W. Bush to abstain from voting on the cease-fire resolution that she was negotiating. Olmert said he had called Bush - and interrupted him at an event in Philadelphia - to ensure the United States did not vote for it.

"I said: 'Get me President Bush on the phone,'" Olmert said in a speech in the southern Israeli city of Ashkelon. "They said he was in the middle of giving a speech in Philadelphia. I said I didn't care: 'I need to talk to him now.' He got off the podium and spoke to me."

Olmert said he argued that the United States should not vote in favor of the resolution, and the president then called Rice and told her not to do so. "She was left pretty embarrassed," Olmert said.

Yes, Olmert is a shitty little PM.

PB

[babylonsister]

1. This gets better and better. Now they're calling Olmert a liar?

Who would make that up?


http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090112/pl_afp/mideastconflictgazaolmertusrice_newsmlmmd

Rice shame-faced by Bush over UN Gaza vote: Olmert


JERUSALEM (AFP) – US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was left shame-faced after President George W. Bush ordered her to abstain in a key UN vote on the Gaza war, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said on Monday.

"She was left shamed. A resolution that she prepared and arranged, and in the end she did not vote in favour," Olmert said in a speech in the southern town of Ashkelon.

The UN Security Council passed a resolution last Thursday calling for an immediate ceasefire in the three-week-old conflict in the Gaza Strip and an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza where hundreds have been killed.

Fourteen of the council's 15 members voted in favour of the resolution, which was later rejected by both Israel and Hamas.

The United States, Israel's main ally, had initially been expected to voted in line with the other 14 but Rice later became the sole abstention.

more...

[originalpckelly]

2. Let's assume that Olmert was right, would the US admit that?

I can't imagine our government admitting a foreign leader has so much power over it, even if we knew this to be true.

So in other words, these denials cannot be used one way or the other to confirm or deny what actually happened, they are unfalsifiable.

[rocktivity]

3. Well, DID George Bush interrupt or delay a speech in Phildelphia?

Or is this the result of realizing that the story makes Bush and Condi look bad?

:headbang:
rocknation

[shadowknows69]

4. The U.S.-Believe us, not your lying ears.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

5. Our government cave in to pressure from Israel?? Perish the thought.

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

[Winterblues]

6. One thing is absolute fact, the US did abstain on the vote

The ONLY country to do so. What excuse was given if it wasn't by Israel's request?