PELOSI SAYS BUSH HASN’T PHONED HER ABOUT TURKEY AND GENOCIDE
By Brian Knowlton
New York Times, NY
Oct 15 2007
As the Bush administration deals with a House committee resolution
equating the killings early last century of more than a million
Armenians in Turkey to genocide, Nancy Pelosi appeared to hint that
a call from President Bush might influence whether she brings the
sensitive matter to the full House.
The House speaker, one of four Congressional leaders to appear on the
Sunday talk shows, repeated her vow to move the genocide question to
the full House for debate now that the House Foreign Affairs Committee
has passed it.
But when George Stephanopoulos asked the key question – how would
she react if Mr. Bush or Defense Secretary Robert Gates called her
to say that they were "just certain that this is going to put our
military at risk" – she replied: "The president hasn’t called me on
it, so that’s hypothetical. He hasn’t called me on it."
Since the committee vote Wednesday, Turkey, a crucial transit point
for U.S. military shipments to Iraq, has issued nearly daily warnings
that its cooperation may be at risk – a point underscored Sunday by
that country’s top general.
The issue is nettlesome for both the administration and Democratic
lawmakers, exposing the former to charges of seeming apathetic about
Ottoman-era atrocities, and the latter to charges of being indifferent
to American troops in Iraq.
Republicans said Sunday that while the Armenians’ deaths were a deeply
deplorable part of history, the safety of American troops had to be
paramount. "I don’t think the Congress passing this resolution is a
good idea at any point," said Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky,
the minority leader, on ABC’s "This Week," "but particularly not
a good idea when Turkey is cooperating with us in many ways, which
assures greater security for our soldiers."
It is unclear whether the administration, which has already pulled
out the big guns on the topic – with letters and public pleas from
both Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary
Robert Gates, and a presidential comment shortly before the vote –
might still change Mrs. Pelosi’s mind. But she made the point twice
Sunday that she had yet to hear personally from Mr. Bush.
"We’ve never had a conversation about it," she said. "I’ve heard
from the secretary of state and others in the administration, but
I’ve never heard from the president."
Mrs. Pelosi also cautioned the administration about any thought of
armed action inside Iran over U.S. complaints that anti-American
militants in Iraq are getting help from Iran. Any U.S. action, she
said, should take place inside Iraq, and if Mr. Bush does wants to
take action in Iran, he will need a congressional authorization.
"That’s what I believe," she said.
Mrs. Pelosi did not dispute that votes may be lacking to override
President Bush’s veto of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program,
or S-CHIP. Democrats say the bill is vital to protecting low-income
children’s health, but Mr. Bush and other Republicans say it reaches
too far into the middle class, with too high a bill.
A vote is set for this week, but Mr. Stephanopoulos told the speaker
that "your counterparts on the Republican side up here in the House
guarantee – guarantee – that you’re not going to override his veto."
She replied: "And isn’t that sad for America’s children?"
"We’ll try very hard to override it," she said. "But one thing’s for
sure: We won’t rest until those 10 million children have health care."
When Mr. Stephanopoulos probed to see whether there was any room
for compromise, the speaker said that the bill already reflected
compromise; she would yield no further on coverage of the 10 million
– which she said, again, would cost no more than 40 days’ worth of
military operations in Iraq.
But Mr. McConnell, the Senate minority leader, said that a compromise
was a must. "There will have to be a deal," he said on ABC. "We’re
not going to leave children – uninsured children uncovered."
Separately, Representative John Boehner, the House minority leader,
agreed.
But just as with the genocide resolution, Mrs. Pelosi indicated that a
phone call from the president might help move things: "We’ll talk to
the president at the right time, when he makes an overture to do so,
but not an overture that says, ‘This is the only thing I’m going to
sign.’ " she said.
Mr. McConnell suggested that Democrats were playing politics with a
drawn-out, high-stakes override attempt that in the end would amount
to "a pebble in the ocean." Mr. Boehner concurred. "This bill was
designed not to pass," he said on Fox News Sunday.
Mrs. Pelosi rejected the charge.
Meantime, after some stunningly candid comments by the former U.S.
top commander in Iraq, retired Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez – who
last week called the war "a living nightmare with no end in sight"
– one pro-war lawmaker did not hold his fire.
Senator John McCain, no wallflower in his support for the war, said
that he had in the past heard the general advocate the very strategy
he now criticizes.
But what, Bob Schieffer asked, is a general to do? "We don’t want
generals making policy. That’s for the civilian leadership. But
should they resign? Should they be willing to speak out?" (Much the
same question has absorbed officers at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas,
"the intellectual center of the United States Army," as Elisabeth
Bumiller reported today.
Mr. McCain, son of an admiral, a U.S. Naval Academy graduate, and
a Navy pilot and prisoner of war in Vietnam, said the answer was
simple: First, they should always give honest responses when asked
their opinion.
And second, "If you think the country is going in the wrong direction
and it’s going to cost the needless loss of young Americans’ lives
then, of course, you should stand up and you should leave your
position. And I know that’s a very tough decision for people to make."