Word: rice
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...Bush Administration's message went through a dramatic evolution over the weekend. Last Friday, describing her upcoming mission to the Middle East, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said dismissively, "I can guarantee you, if you simply look for a ceasefire that acknowledges and freezes the status quo ante, we will be back here in six months again or in five months or in nine months or in a year, trying to get another ceasefire because HIzballah will have decided yet again to try and to use southern Lebanon as a sanctuary to fire against Israel...
...Sunday, as Rice's U.S. Air Force 757 headed for the Middle East, she told reporters, "We believe that a ceasefire is urgent...
...what changed? Officially nothing, most notably the U.S. position. Rice said that her own idea of a ceasefire involved "a cessation of hostilities that is going to last... The south [of Lebanon] can't be a kind of haven for [Hizballah] to launch attacks...
...every word in diplomacy is carefully chosen, so there may be more to Rice's surprising statement than anyone will admit. Perhaps Rice's willingness to talk about ceasefire had to do with the Sunday afternoon meeting between President Bush, National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley, Rice and Prince Saud Al Faisal, the Saudi foreign minister; Prince Bandar, the regime's top national security official; and Prince Turki, the Saudi Ambassador to the U.S. The trio delivered a letter from Saudi King Abdullah to Bush. And though its content has not been made public, the Saudi government has made no secret...
...Rice seems well aware that the death and destruction wreaked by the Israeli bombardment and blockade of Lebanon is causing great anguish in the Arab world - and that U.S. support for Israel is endangering U.S. relations with moderate Arab leaders. So she is making a point of claiming that the U.S. hasn't sat by passively as the region's misery deepens...