NEW YORK: US President George W Bush is going to weather his trip to Pakistan in March despite the fact that he may face a barrage of hate and protests from locals outraged by the caricatures of Prophet Mohammed.
President Bush can never win a popularity contest in Pakistan but plain dislike for him seems to have peaked in the run-up to his first official visit to India and Pakistan in roughly three weeks. The 13 January missile strike on the Pakistani village of Damadola had sparked spontaneous anti-US protests and now thousands have again protested against the newspaper cartoons and burned Bush in effigy in Pakistani tribal areas.
The White House played down the anti-Bush sentiments running rife in Pakistan and denied the trip may be called off because the administration was wary about persistent security threats.
“The President looks forward to going to India. He looks forward to going to Pakistan. We are making arrangements for that trip, and that will be in a few weeks,” White House spokesman Scott McClellan told reporters on Thursday scotching talk of Bush cancelling his Pakistan trip due to raging protests over the cartoons.
The Bush administration has strongly condemned the deadly rioting sparked by the cartoons of Prophet Mohammad and managed to ratchet up tensions by blaming Iran and Syria of going out of their way to inflame Muslim sentiments.
Bush sought to balance his remarks by urging the media to be sensitive.
“We believe in free press,” he said. “We also recognise that with freedom come responsibilities. With freedom comes the responsibility to be thoughtful about others.”
Although Bush is expected to be in India between March 1 and 3, the US state department is unwilling to breathe a word about the president’s itinerary because of security concerns. “We have to have a siege mentality because the risks are too high,” a US state department official who did not want to be named told DNA.
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