Spain PM asks Bush to restrain Rumsfeld
By Roland Watson and David Charter
MADRID: President Bush has been told to muzzle Donald Rumsfeld, his
provocative Defence Secretary, if he wants to ease European misgivings
about war with Iraq.
José María Aznar, the Spanish Prime Minister, spoke for many European
diplomats and officials, including the British, when he delivered the
message while staying at Mr Bush’s Texas ranch last weekend. “I did
tell the President that we need a lot of Powell and not much of
Rumsfeld,” said Señor Aznar, referring to Colin Powell, the US
Secretary of State. “Ministers of Defence should talk less, shouldn’t
they? The more Powell speaks and the less Rumsfeld speaks, that
wouldn’t be a bad thing altogether.”
Señor Aznar is the first leader to voice publicly what many Europeans
supportive of confronting Baghdad feel strongly in private: that Mr
Rumsfeld has made their diplomatic work much harder.
The Spanish leader is thought to have been particularly perturbed by
Mr Rumsfeld’s recent comparison of Germany’s “do nothing” approach to
Saddam Hussein with that of Libya and Cuba, two countries on the US
State Department’s list of sponsors of state terrorism.
European officials blame Mr Rumsfeld’s acerbic goading and
confrontational style for deepening splits between Washington, Paris
and Berlin that could have been resolved without either side losing
face. At the critical diplomatic juncture over Iraq in recent weeks,
Mr Rumsfeld angered France and Germany by dismissing them as “old
Europe”.
Mr Bush, intensely loyal to everyone on his team, has given no public
indication that he intends to rein in Mr Rumsfeld. The veteran
politician, 70, who is the youngest and oldest man to serve as US
Defence Secretary, is very much his “own man”. —LT
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