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Albright Defends Speaker Pelosi for Syria Trip Opposed by Bush
Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright defended House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for going to Syria against the wishes of President George W. Bush, saying the trip showed the importance of meeting leaders at odds with the U.S. Pelosi conferred with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on April 4, brushing aside a request from Bush to avoid the country accused by his administration of allowing fighters to enter Iraq. Bush called her trip ``counterproductive.''

``I spent a lot of time in Damascus talking to Bashar's father,'' Albright, 69, said in an interview on Bloomberg Television's ``Political Capital with Al Hunt,'' scheduled to air today. ``I talked to a lot of people that we didn't necessarily agree with, and I think that's not a bad message.''
You talked to the Poofy-Haired Midgit in North Korea; look at how that turned out.
Bush has come under pressure from Democrats and some Republicans to hold broad talks with Syria and Iran about Iraq and other Middle East issues. Syria and Iran are both listed by the U.S. as state sponsors of terrorism, chiefly for their support of Islamic groups hostile to Israel. Asked if Pelosi, 67, had a productive visit to Syria, Albright said ``it had mixed signals.''

While the U.S. has had minimal contact with Syria since the assassination of Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri in 2005, there has been a slight shift in course this year. U.S. officials met both Syrian and Iranian delegates at a March 10 conference in Baghdad, and Defense Secretary Robert Gates said the U.S. is ``open to higher-level exchanges'' to try to stabilize Iraq.
Posted by: Fred 2007-04-07
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=185168