[Kabar-indonesia] WP: Strike NKorean Missile Site, Say Ex-Defense Officials [+US Rejects Talks]

[JoyoNews at aol.com]

5 reports: 

- WP: Former Defense Officials Urge U.S. 
  Strike on North Korean Missile Site
  [See below]  

- WP: If Necessary, Strike and Destroy
  [North Korea Cannot Be Allowed to Test 
  This Missile (By Ashton B. Carter and 
  William J. Perry)]

- U.S. Rejects N.Korea Bid for Missile Talks

- NYT: Rallied by Bush, Skittish G.O.P. 
  Now Embraces War as Issue 

- NYT: Bush, Facing Skeptics in Europe, 
  Defends His Iraq Policy 

The Washington Post
Thursday, June 22, 2006

Former Defense Officials Urge U.S. 
Strike on North Korean Missile Site

By Glenn Kessler and Anthony Faiola
Washington Post Staff Writers

Former defense secretary William J. Perry has called on President Bush to 
launch 
a preemptive strike against the long-range ballistic missile that U.S. 
intelligence analysts say North Korea is preparing to launch.

In an opinion article that appears in today's Washington Post, Perry and 
former assistant defense secretary Ashton B. Carter argue that if North Korea 
continues launch preparations, Bush should immediately declare that the United 
States will destroy the missile before it can be fired.

Perry and Carter suggest using a cruise missile launched from a submarine and 
carrying a high-explosive warhead. "The effect on the Taepodong would be 
devastating," they write, using the name of the Korean missile. "The multi-story, 
thin-skinned missile filled with high-energy fuel is itself explosive -- the 
U.S. airstrike would puncture the missile and probably cause it to explode. The 
carefully engineered test bed for North Korea's nascent nuclear missile force 
would be destroyed."

As President Bill Clinton's defense secretary, Perry oversaw preparation for 
airstrikes on North Korean nuclear facilities in 1994, an attack that was 
never carried out. He has remained deeply involved in Korean policy issues and is 
widely respected in national-security circles, especially among senior 
military officers. He has been a critic of the Bush administration's approach to 
North Korea.

"We believe diplomacy might have precluded the current situation," Perry and 
Carter said. "But diplomacy has failed, and we cannot sit by and let this 
deadly threat mature."

Perry and Carter say that such a strike "undoubtedly carries risk" but that 
there would be no damage to North Korea beyond the missile galley. They argue 
that the unproven U.S. missile-defense system might not be able to shoot down a 
missile.

Meanwhile, there were some signs that South Korea, where officials have 
expressed skepticism over U.S. intelligence regarding an imminent missile launch, 
might be willing to step up pressure on the North. Yesterday, Kim Dae Jung, the 
former South Korean president, postponed a much-lauded visit next week to the 
North Korean capital, Pyongyang, because of the rising tensions.

"Because of the unforeseen situation, it has become difficult" for Kim to 
visit North Korea, Jeong Se Hyun, a former top aide to Kim, told reporters.

In addition, South Korea's unification minister, Lee Jong-Seok, was widely 
quoted in the country's press as suggesting that continued investment and 
humanitarian aid to North Korea might be curbed if Pyongyang conducts a missile 
test. In a meeting with opposition leaders from South Korea's Grand National 
Party, which has criticized the administration of President Roh Moo Hyun for being 
soft on North Korea, Lee was quoted by the Korea Times as saying Seoul "will 
not pretend as if nothing has happened in the event of North Korea test-firing 
a missile."

Also yesterday, the U.S. ambassador to Japan reiterated that "all options are 
on the table" with regard to North Korea.

Asked whether the United States would attempt to shoot down the North Korean 
missile if launched, J. Thomas Schieffer warned in an interview that "we have 
greater technical means of tracking it than we had in the past, and we have 
options that we have not had in the past."

Faiola reported from Tokyo.

--------------------------------------------

The Washington Post
Thursday, June 22, 2006

Opinion

If Necessary, Strike and Destroy

North Korea Cannot Be Allowed to Test This Missile

By Ashton B. Carter and William J. Perry

North Korean technicians are reportedly in the final stages of fueling a 
long-range ballistic missile that some experts estimate can deliver a deadly 
payload to the United States. The last time North Korea tested such a missile, in 
1998, it sent a shock wave around the world, but especially to the United 
States and Japan, both of which North Korea regards as archenemies. They recognized 
immediately that a missile of this type makes no sense as a weapon unless it 
is intended for delivery of a nuclear warhead.

A year later North Korea agreed to a moratorium on further launches, which it 
upheld -- until now. But there is a critical difference between now and 1998. 
Today North Korea openly boasts of its nuclear deterrent, has obtained six to 
eight bombs' worth of plutonium since 2003 and is plunging ahead to make more 
in its Yongbyon reactor. The six-party talks aimed at containing North 
Korea's weapons of mass destruction have collapsed.

Should the United States allow a country openly hostile to it and armed with 
nuclear weapons to perfect an intercontinental ballistic missile capable of 
delivering nuclear weapons to U.S. soil? We believe not. The Bush administration 
has unwisely ballyhooed the doctrine of "preemption," which all previous 
presidents have sustained as an option rather than a dogma. It has applied the 
doctrine to Iraq, where the intelligence pointed to a threat from weapons of mass 
destruction that was much smaller than the risk North Korea poses. (The 
actual threat from Saddam Hussein was, we now know, even smaller than believed at 
the time of the invasion.) But intervening before mortal threats to U.S. 
security can develop is surely a prudent policy.

Therefore, if North Korea persists in its launch preparations, the United 
States should immediately make clear its intention to strike and destroy the 
North Korean Taepodong missile before it can be launched. This could be 
accomplished, for example, by a cruise missile launched from a submarine carrying a 
high-explosive warhead. The blast would be similar to the one that killed 
terrorist leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in Iraq. But the effect on the Taepodong would 
be devastating. The multi-story, thin-skinned missile filled with high-energy 
fuel is itself explosive -- the U.S. airstrike would puncture the missile and 
probably cause it to explode. The carefully engineered test bed for North 
Korea's nascent nuclear missile force would be destroyed, and its attempt to 
retrogress to Cold War threats thwarted. There would be no damage to North Korea 
outside the immediate vicinity of the missile gantry.

The U.S. military has announced that it has placed some of the new missile 
defense interceptors deployed in Alaska and California on alert. In theory, the 
antiballistic missile system might succeed in smashing into the Taepodong 
payload as it hurtled through space after the missile booster burned out. But 
waiting until North Korea's ICBM is launched to interdict it is risky. First, by 
the time the payload was intercepted, North Korean engineers would already have 
obtained much of the precious flight test data they are seeking, which they 
could use to make a whole arsenal of missiles, hiding and protecting them from 
more U.S. strikes in the maze of tunnels they have dug throughout their 
mountainous country. Second, the U.S. defensive interceptor could reach the target 
only if it was flying on a test trajectory that took it into the range of the 
U.S. defense. Third, the U.S. system is unproven against North Korean missiles 
and has had an uneven record in its flight tests. A failed attempt at 
interception could undermine whatever deterrent value our missile defense may have.

We should not conceal our determination to strike the Taepodong if North 
Korea refuses to drain the fuel out and take it back to the warehouse. When they 
learn of it, our South Korean allies will surely not support this ultimatum -- 
indeed they will vigorously oppose it. The United States should accordingly 
make clear to the North that the South will play no role in the attack, which 
can be carried out entirely with U.S. forces and without use of South Korean 
territory. South Korea has worked hard to counter North Korea's 50-year menacing 
of its own country, through both military defense and negotiations, and the 
United States has stood with the South throughout. South Koreans should 
understand that U.S. territory is now also being threatened, and we must respond. 
Japan is likely to welcome the action but will also not lend open support or 
assistance. China and Russia will be shocked that North Korea's recklessness and 
the failure of the six-party talks have brought things to such a pass, but they 
will not defend North Korea.

In addition to warning our allies and partners of our determination to take 
out the Taepodong before it can be launched, we should warn the North Koreans. 
There is nothing they could do with such warning to defend the bulky, 
vulnerable missile on its launch pad, but they could evacuate personnel who might 
otherwise be harmed. The United States should emphasize that the strike, if 
mounted, would not be an attack on the entire country, or even its military, but 
only on the missile that North Korea pledged not to launch -- one designed to 
carry nuclear weapons. We should sharply warn North Korea against further 
escalation.

North Korea could respond to U.S. resolve by taking the drastic step of 
threatening all-out war on the Korean Peninsula. But it is unlikely to act on that 
threat. Why attack South Korea, which has been working to improve North-South 
relations (sometimes at odds with the United States) and which was openly 
opposing the U.S. action? An invasion of South Korea would bring about the certain 
end of Kim Jong Il's regime within a few bloody weeks of war, as surely he 
knows. Though war is unlikely, it would be prudent for the United States to 
enhance deterrence by introducing U.S. air and naval forces into the region at the 
same time it made its threat to strike the Taepodong. If North Korea opted 
for such a suicidal course, these extra forces would make its defeat swifter and 
less costly in lives -- American, South Korean and North Korean.

This is a hard measure for President Bush to take. It undoubtedly carries 
risk. But the risk of continuing inaction in the face of North Korea's race to 
threaten this country would be greater. Creative diplomacy might have avoided 
the need to choose between these two unattractive alternatives. Indeed, in 
earlier years the two of us were directly involved in negotiations with North 
Korea, coupled with military planning, to prevent just such an outcome. We believe 
diplomacy might have precluded the current situation. But diplomacy has 
failed, and we cannot sit by and let this deadly threat mature. A successful 
Taepodong launch, unopposed by the United States, its intended victim, would only 
embolden North Korea even further. The result would be more nuclear warheads atop 
more and more missiles.

Ashton B. Carter was assistant secretary of defense under President Bill 
Clinton and William J. Perry was secretary of defense. The writers, who conducted 
the North Korea policy review while in government, are now professors at 
Harvard and Stanford, respectively.

---------------------------------------------

The Associated Press
Thursday, June 22, 2006

U.S. Rejects N.Korea Bid for Missile Talks

By BURT HERMAN

SEOUL, South Korea -- North Korea called Wednesday for direct talks with the 
United States over a potential missile test, but the Bush administration 
rejected the overture, saying threats aren't the way to seek dialogue.

"You don't normally engage in conversations by threatening to launch 
intercontinental ballistic missiles," U.N. Ambassador John Bolton said. "It's not a 
way to produce a conversation because if you acquiesce in aberrant behavior you 
simply encourage the repetition of it, which we're obviously not going to do."

President Bush, meeting with European leaders in Austria, said North Korea 
faced further isolation if it went ahead with any launch.

"It should make people nervous when non-transparent regimes who have 
announced they have nuclear warheads, fire missiles," Bush said. "This is not the way 
you conduct business in the world."

Earlier Wednesday, Han Song Ryol, deputy chief of North Korea's mission to 
the United Nations, said Pyongyang was seeking to resolve the missile test 
concerns through direct talks with the United States.

"North Korea as a sovereign state has the right to develop, deploy, test fire 
and export a missile," he told South Korea's Yonhap news agency. "We are 
aware of the U.S. concerns about our missile test-launch. So our position is that 
we should resolve the issue through negotiations."

Pyongyang has consistently pressed for direct dialogue with the United 
States, while Washington insists it will only speak to the North at six-nation 
nuclear talks. The North has refused to return to the nuclear talks since November, 
in anger over a U.S. crackdown on the country's alleged illicit financial 
activity.

State Department deputy spokesman Adam Ereli reiterated the U.S. position 
Wednesday, saying direct talks with North Korea are "not in the cards."

"The issue of North Korea's nuclear program is not a U.S.-North Korea issue. 
It is an issue that concerns the entire region," he told reporters in 
Washington.

"If North Korea wants to talk to the United States about its missile-launch 
programs or its nuclear program or about security and stability on the 
peninsula in general, then we should do it through the six-party process," Ereli said. 
"It's a multilateral approach which provides for, within it, bilateral 
engagement."

The missile crisis led former South Korean President Kim Dae-jung to cancel a 
trip next week to the North that could have offered a rare chance for talks. 
In addition, South Korea said a missile test could affect Seoul's humanitarian 
aid to Pyongyang.

Washington was weighing responses to a potential test that could include 
attempting to shoot down the missile, U.S. officials have said.

Bolton said he was continuing discussions with U.N. Security Council members 
on possible action, and had met with Russia's U.N. ambassador.

"Obviously the priority remains trying to persuade North Korea not to conduct 
the launch," Bolton said at U.N. headquarters in New York.

After North Korea surprised the world in 1998 by firing a missile that flew 
over Japan into the Pacific, the Security Council issued a press statement _ 
its mildest comment. But Bolton said there would be stronger council reaction 
this time.

"There's no question about it," Bolton said. "We're seeing broad support for 
something stronger but we don't want to be in a position where we're 
predicting the future or doing anything other than making it clear we don't think the 
launch ought to take place."

U.S. Ambassador to Japan Thomas Scheiffer said the United States has means of 
responding to a North Korean missile test that it didn't have in 1998, and is 
considering "all options."

In comments published Wednesday, North Korea said its self-imposed moratorium 
on testing long-range missiles no longer applies because it's not in direct 
dialogue with Washington, suggesting it would hold off on any launch if 
Washington agreed to new talks.

North Korea imposed its missile moratorium in 1999 amid friendlier relations 
with the U.S. during the Clinton administration. During a 2002 summit with 
Japan, North Korean leader Kim Jong Il signed an agreement to extend the 
moratorium until at least 2003 _ and reaffirmed the launch ban at another summit in 
2004.

Intelligence reports say the North is possibly fueling a Taepodong-2 missile 
with a range experts estimate could be up to 9,300 miles _ making it capable 
of reaching parts of the United States.

There are diverging expert opinions on whether fueling would mean a launch 
was imminent _ due to the highly corrosive nature of the fuel _ or whether the 
North could wait a month or more.

Victoria Samson, a research analyst with the Washington-based Center for 
Defense Information, said that if the missile were loaded, it would probably have 
to be fired "within days."

"That sort of fuel combination ... starts eating away at the missile," she 
said.

The key question is, however, whether it was indeed loaded or whether the 
North Koreans just wanted to make it appear that way for the benefit of 
satellites.

North Korea claims it has nuclear weapons, but isn't believed to have a 
design that would be small and light enough to top a missile.

South Korean Unification Minister Lee Jong-seok told opposition lawmakers 
Wednesday a missile test could affect Seoul's humanitarian aid to the North.

"If North Korea test fires a missile, it might have an impact on aid of rice 
and fertilizer to North Korea," Lee said, according to his spokesman Yang 
Chang-seok.

South Korea has shipped 150,000 tons of fertilizer this year and had planned 
to send 200,000 tons more. Pyongyang has asked for 500,000 tons of rice this 
year, but Seoul has yet to agree.

The European Union appealed Wednesday to the North to cancel any plans for a 
launch.

"We must say that what they are trying to do ... will have consequences," EU 
foreign and security affairs chief Javier Solana said on the sidelines of the 
European meeting with Bush.

Associated Press reporters Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations, Jennifer 
Loven in Vienna, Austria, Jae-soon Chang and Kwang-tae Kim in Seoul, and Hiroko 
Tabuchi and Joseph Coleman in Tokyo contributed to this report.

------------------------------------------

The New York Times
Thursday, June 22, 2006

Rallied by Bush, Skittish G.O.P. Now Embraces War as Issue 

By JIM RUTENBERG and ADAM NAGOURNEY

WASHINGTON, June 21 -- Just a few weeks ago, some Republicans were openly 
fretting about the war in Iraq and its effect on their re-election prospects, 
with particularly vulnerable lawmakers worried that its growing unpopularity was 
becoming a drag on their campaigns.

But there was little sign of such nervousness on Wednesday as Republican 
after Republican took to the Senate floor to offer an unambiguous embrace of the 
Iraq war and to portray Democrats as advocates of an overly hasty withdrawal 
that would have grave consequences for the security of the United States. Like 
their counterparts in the House last week, they accused Democrats of espousing 
"retreat and defeatism."

That emerging Republican approach reflects, at least for now, the success of 
a White House effort to bring a skittish party behind Mr. Bush on the war 
after months of political ambivalence in some vocal quarters. As President Bush 
offered another defense of his Iraq policy during a visit to Vienna on 
Wednesday, Republicans acknowledged that it was a strategy of necessity, an effort to 
turn what some party leaders had feared could become the party's greatest 
liability into an advantage in the midterm elections.

The approach might yet be upended by more problems in Iraq, as Republicans 
were reminded this week with reports about two American servicemen who were 
abducted, tortured and apparently killed. Some polls show a majority of Americans 
continue to think that entering Iraq was a mistake, and pollsters say 
independent voters are particularly open to the idea of setting some sort of timetable 
for withdrawal, the very policy Democrats have embraced and Republicans are 
now fighting.

But people who attended a series of high-level meetings this month between 
White House and Congressional officials say President Bush's aides argued that 
it could be a politically fatal mistake for Republicans to walk away from the 
war in an election year. 

White House officials including the national security adviser, Stephen J. 
Hadley, outlined ways in which Republican lawmakers could speak more forcefully 
about the war. Participants also included Mr. Bush's top political and 
communications advisers: his deputy chief of staff, Karl Rove; his political director, 
Sara Taylor; and the White House counselor, Dan Bartlett. Mr. Rove is newly 
freed from the threat of indictment in the C.I.A. leak case, and leaders of 
both parties see his reinvigorated hand in the strategy. 

The meetings were followed by the distribution of a 74-page briefing book to 
Congressional offices from the Pentagon to provide ammunition for what White 
House officials say will be a central line of attack against Democrats from now 
through the midterm elections: that the withdrawal being advocated by 
Democrats would mean thousands of troops would have died for nothing, would give 
extremists a launching pad from which to build an Islamo-fascist empire and would 
hand the United States its must humiliating defeat since Vietnam.

Republicans say the cumulative effect would be to send a message of weakness 
to the world at a time of new threats from Iran and North Korea and would 
leave enemies controlling Iraq's vast oil reserves, the third largest in the 
world. (The book, including a chapter entitled "Rapid Response" with answers to 
frequent Democratic charges, was sent via e-mail to Republican lawmakers but, in 
an apparent mistake, also to some Democrats.) 

A senior adviser to Mr. Bush said the White House had concluded that it was 
better to plunge aggressively into the debate on Iraq than to let Democrats 
play upon clear, public misgivings about the war. "This is going to be a big 
issue in this election," said the adviser, who was granted anonymity in exchange 
for agreeing to describe strategic considerations about the war. "Better to 
shape and fight it — as good and strongly as you can — than to try to run away 
from it." 

In a telephone interview, Ken Mehlman, the Republican chairman, disputed the 
notion that the latest difficulties in Iraq would set back the effort to push 
the debate onto newly favorable terms for Republicans.

"The fundamental question," Mr. Mehlman said, "is if you think the enemy is 
more brutal than before, is the answer that you should surrender?"

Officials at the White House say they had always planned to use the formation 
of a new, permanent Iraqi government as a lever to seize control of a debate 
that had been slipping away from them. The killing of the top terrorist in 
Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, provided another useful lift. And, they said, 
Democratic calls for speedy troop withdrawal provided an opening for them to use a 
"cut and run" argument against Democrats, which Mr. Rove used last week in a 
speech in New Hampshire.

Ron Bonjean, a spokesman for the House speaker, J. Dennis Hastert, said House 
Republicans had been planning to introduce a resolution emphasizing the need 
to complete the mission in Iraq. But, he said, the House leaders worked in 
consultation with the White House to hone the final language of the resolution, 
which read in part that "the terrorists have declared Iraq to be the central 
front in their war against all who oppose their ideology." 

The strategy still required calming some uneasy Republicans,administration 
officials said. A participant in one White House meeting, who would discuss the 
intraparty debate only after being promised anonymity, said Mr. Bush's aides 
sought to convince lawmakers that the political situation was not so dire 
because polls had also shown dissatisfaction with progress in Iraq in 2004. 
Democrats say the climate is far different now, with a higher American death tally 
and fresh acknowledgments from even the administration that crucial mistakes 
were made. 

"Two-thousand-six is not 2004," said Senator Charles E. Schumer of New York, 
who is running the Senate Democrats' campaign effort. "The American people 
recognize that the commander in chief got us into Iraq and it is his job to get 
us out of Iraq."

But Republicans who have expressed nervousness about the war earlier this 
month seemed less so by the time of this week's Senate debate. In a telephone 
interview on Wednesday, Representative Christopher Shays of Connecticut, a 
Republican who has frequently expressed concern about the war's effect on his 
prospects this year, said he favored a path that could be called "staying the 
course, or learning from our mistakes and now doing it right." 

Mr. Shays echoed other Republicans by saying, "I would strongly oppose any 
premature departure from Iraq to help me or anyone else win election."

-----------------------------------------

The New York Times
Thursday, June 22, 2006

Bush, Facing Skeptics in Europe, Defends His Iraq Policy 

By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG

VIENNA, June 21 — President Bush, visiting this Central European city with 
the aim of promoting trans-Atlantic unity, instead issued an impassioned defense 
of his Iraq policy on Wednesday amid pointed reminders of how far the United 
States has fallen in the eyes of many Europeans.

"That's absurd!" Mr. Bush declared, dismissing a European reporter's 
suggestion that most Europeans regard the United States as a bigger threat to global 
stability than North Korea, which has proclaimed it has nuclear arms, and Iran, 
which is suspected of developing them.

"Look, people didn't agree with my decision on Iraq, and I understand that," 
he continued, clearly irritated, when another reporter asked about a poll 
showing European discontent with his policies. "For Europe, September the 11th was 
a moment; for us, it was a change of thinking."

Mr. Bush's heated exchange with European reporters — under the glittering 
chandeliers of the marble-columned throne room in the Hofburg Palace, once the 
imperial home of the Hapsburgs — followed a meeting of Mr. Bush and leaders of 
the European Union. They discussed issues that included the nuclear tensions 
with North Korea and Iran, a faltering world trade pact and demands by the 
Europeans for the United States to close the detainee center at Guantánamo Bay, 
Cuba.

Few, if any, decisions were reached. Mr. Bush described the so-called Doha 
trade negotiations, which are stalled over the issue of agricultural subsidies, 
as "tough work" and said, as he has before, that he would not close 
Guantánamo. That issue threatened to overshadow the meeting, so much so that Mr. Bush 
initiated discussion on it during his session with Chancellor Wolfgang Schüssel 
of Austria, the European Union president, and José Manuel Barroso, the 
president of the European Commission, the European Union's governing body.

"He didn't wait that we raise the question," Mr. Schüssel said at the news 
conference, standing with Mr. Barroso alongside Mr. Bush. "He came up and said, 
'Look, this is my problem, this is where we are.' " 

The meeting came at a delicate moment for the White House on Iraq. After two 
weeks of trying to capitalize on the death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Bush 
administration is now faced with the ugly news of the capture, torture and 
killing of two American soldiers in Iraq. On Capitol Hill, lawmakers are engaged 
in an intense debate over whether to set a timetable for the withdrawal of 
troops.

Against this backdrop, the White House is pursuing an aggressive strategy of 
embracing the war, believing it is better to confront Americans' unease about 
Iraq than to let it fester. In a sense, then, the president's defiant stance 
on Iraq in Europe simply echoed the course he is pursuing at home.

Mr. Bush's arrival here was greeted with largely peaceful protests. His 
remarks on the war were not very different than what he had said before. But the 
vigor of his defense, coming at a time when he is trying to repair frayed 
relations with Europeans and has joined them in trying to negotiate a peaceful end 
to Iran's nuclear program, underscored how fragile those relations remain. 

At one point, Mr. Schüssel stepped in to defend Mr. Bush, recalling his own 
boyhood in post-World War II Vienna, when the city lay in ruins and Americans 
offered food and aid. "Without America, what fate would have Europe?" he said, 
adding, "I think we should be fair from the other side of the Atlantic."

Though the official agenda for the European meeting was centered on 
terrorism, energy and trade, Iran and North Korea loomed large over the talks. On North 
Korea, Mr. Bush sidestepped a question about how the United States might 
respond to a missile test. He said simply, "The North Koreans have made agreements 
with us in the past, and we expect them to keep their agreements."

John R. Bolton, the American ambassador to the United Nations, on Wednesday 
rejected what appeared to be an offer from North Korea to discuss its 
preparations for a missile test, Reuters reported. "It's not a way to produce a 
conversation," he said, "because if you acquiesce in aberrant behavior you simply 
encourage the repetition of it, which we're obviously not going to do."

Mr. Bolton also told CNN that China should do more to persuade North Korea 
not to test its missile.

Wednesday's meeting here reflected what Ivo H. Daalder, a foreign policy 
analyst at the Brookings Institution, called Mr. Bush's "delicate minuet" with 
Europe.

A poll released last week by the Pew Research Center, a nonpartisan 
organization in Washington, found that most people surveyed in 10 of 14 foreign 
countries said the war in Iraq had made the world more dangerous. In France, 36 
percent of those surveyed cited American involvement in Iraq as a threat to world 
peace, as opposed to 31 percent citing Iran and 16 percent citing North Korea.

Despite the numbers, analysts say, tensions have been easing since Mr. Bush's 
last trip to Europe, in 2005. Now, as he emphasizes a peaceful resolution in 
Iran, foreign policy experts say he has improved his credibility with European 
governments, if not the European people. 

"I don't think Europeans are ever going to learn to love George Bush," said 
Mark Leonard, director of foreign policy at the Center for European Reform, a 
research institution in London. But, he said, "I think there has been a 
remarkable honeymoon between governments." 

That honeymoon does not extend to the local press. On Tuesday, anticipating 
Mr. Bush's arrival, an Austrian commentator, Hans Rauscher, offered a brutal 
assessment of Mr. Bush in the newspaper Der Standard, calling him "probably the 
worst president of the past 100 years."

But Mr. Bush fought back, citing American aid to Africa to fight the AIDS 
epidemic and his declaration of genocide in Darfur as examples of American 
compassion.

"I will do my best to explain our foreign policy," he said. "On the one hand, 
it's tough when it needs to be; on the other hand, it's compassionate. And 
we'll let the polls figure out -- people can say what they want to say."

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Joyo Indonesia News Service
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