Washington – President Bush’s disclosure of previously secret CIA prisons overseas and his unapologetic defense of hardball tactics in the war on terrorism may rub salt in a diplomatic wound his administration had hoped to heal.
Allies the Bush administration badly needs to accomplish foreign policy goals in the Middle East and beyond are among those troubled by both CIA prisons and the detention facility at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Bush said he has emptied CIA prisons on foreign soil for now, but he didn’t promise to close them. His plan for new trials of terrorism suspects at Guantanamo ensures that a facility detested by some close allies (Saudi Arabia) and barely tolerated by others (Britain) will remain open indefinitely.
Much of Bush’s message was intended for domestic political consumption ahead of the fifth anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks and midterm congressional elections. But the administration is also attentive to how it will play overseas.
The State Department called in select ambassadors before and after Bush’s announcement, the department’s top lawyer briefed foreign reporters, and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice called the head of the International Committee of the Red Cross just before Bush spoke.
Many allies in Europe, the Muslim world and elsewhere are still rankled by the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq three years ago. But after Bush’s re-election and careful outreach from Rice, even sharp critics had basically agreed to disagree with Washington.
The complaints subsided but never went away, and a United Nations panel issued a scathing report in May that U.S. officials called unfair and incomplete.
