Bush pushes UN to act against Syria
Says US working with Musharraf to isolate terrorists
Foreign Desk Report

WASHINGTON—US President George W. Bush has accused Syria of destablizing Lebanon and backing terrorists and said the United Nations must hold Damascus accountable.
“Syria is destablizing Lebanon, permitting terrorists to use its territory to reach Iraq, and giving safe harbor to Palestinian terrorist groups,” he said in a speech at Bolling Air Force Base here Tuesday.
“The United Nations has passed strong resolutions against terror. Now the United Nations must act,” said Bush, who pointed to a UN report implicating senior Syrian security officials in the February assassination of former Lebanese Premier Rafiq Hariri.
“Syria and its leaders must be held accountable for their continuing support for terrorism, including any involvement in the murder of prime minister Hariri,” said the US President.
Syria must take the demands of the free world “seriously,” US President George W. Bush warned in a wide ranging interview as he said the trial of Saddam Hussein was “fair” and the US was committed to the Middle East peace roadmap.
Speaking in an interview with Dubai-based Al Arabiya television, Bush added that he hoped to avoid a confrontation with Syria over tensions involving its role in Lebanon. “Nobody wants there to be a confrontation,” he said.
“On the other hand, there must be serious pressure applied so that the leader understands that, one, they can’t house terrorist groups that will destroy the peace process with Israel and Palestine, for example; two, they should stop meddling in Lebanon; three, that they should stop allowing transit of bombers and killers into Iraq that are killing people that want there to be a democracy,” he added.
Bush’s comments came in the wake of the release of results of a UN investigation into the murder last February of former Lebanese premier Rafiq Hariri and 20 others. The investigation has detailed a chilling plan involving senior Syrian officials to trail, threaten and kill Hariri.
Damascus has denied any role in the assassination, and has rejected the probe’s findings as politically biased, incomplete and “a big lie.” Asked if force is an option in dealing with Syria, Bush said that a military response is “always the last option”.
“I think one of the things that Syria has learned is that non-compliance with international demands will yield to isolation,” Bush said. The world has made it clear in the UN resolution 1559 for Syria to “get out of Lebanon, leave Lebanon alone, let Lebanon democracy flourish and function,” Bush said. On the trial of Saddam he said the key was “that there will be a fair trial, which is something he didn’t give many of the thousands of people he killed”.
“I think the trial needs to go forward ... I think the people of Iraq would like to see Saddam Hussein tried for the crimes he committed,” Bush said. Saddam and seven co-defendants face charges related to the killing of 148 Shiites from the village of Dujail following a failed attempt there on the Iraqi leader’s life in July 1982. The defendants have all claimed their innocence.
After the first day in court on October 19 the trial was adjourned until November 28, in part because several witnesses and people affected by the massacre were not present in the court, according to a Baghdad source. Turning to Middle East peace, Bush told the television station the United States was “fully committed” to the roadmap to peace, drawn up by the United States, Russia, the European Union and the United Nations.
“The United States is fully committed to the roadmap, we’re fully committed to helping going forward, and we’re fully committed to practical things on the ground,” Bush told the Dubai-based Al Arabiya television. Asked about his statement during Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas’ visit here last week that he was uncertain a Palestinian state would see the light of day before he ended his second term in office in 2009, Bush showed more optimism:
“Look, I said I would like this to happen before I end being president. And I would. And we are going to push,” the US president said, according to a White House transcript of the interview. “Condi and I talk about this all the time... about how we’d very much like to see a Palestinian democracy achieve its status as a state,” he added referring to his Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. “I think it would be a great historic achievement for everybody involved. And so I did put out a firm date, and I’m going to work hard for that date,” he added.
“On the other hand, you don’t want an American president making decisions for other people based upon his own political calendar, or his own time in office, is what I really meant to say. I don’t think it’s fair,” Bush said. “And this is going to be a process, as you know, that will be two steps forward and one step back, and two steps forward,” he said. Abbas said in Amman on Monday that Bush had not mentioned a three or four year delay in the creation of a Palestinian state when they met at the White House last week.
“The American president... hopes that a Palestinian state will see the light of day in a year, more or less, and that the roadmap will be applied. But he did not mean a delay in the sense of dragging it out three or four years,” he said. President George Bush said Tuesday that the United States was working with President General Pervez Musharraf, who is determined “to isolate terrorists in Pakistan”.
The US President lashed at Islamic radicalism and added, “we will never expect anything less than victory” in the ongoing war on terrorism. Addressing the officers’ spouses at a luncheon at the Andrews Air Force Base, he dwelt at length over the genesis of the problem of terrorism, and steps underway to root it out.
He said Islamic radicalism was “elitist,” and likened it with communism and fascism. “Our enemy has totalitarian aims, and it has amibitions of imperialism” though it claims to be in fight with socalled imperialism. Islamic radicalism, he stated was a loose network, with its activists sharing similar ideology and vision. “The Islamic radicals, like communism, believes that innocents can be sacrifised to serve its violent vision”. Most of the victims, he stated were fellow Muslims. “Terrorists are enemies of Islam and humanity. They kill all those who do not share their vision”.