Posted on 05/20/2006 5:29:19 PM PDT by Wolfstar
PRESIDENTIAL NEWS OF THE DAY: The President is spending the weekend at the White House, where his father is visiting. The First Lady gave a commencement address at Roger Williams College in Bristol, RI, today.
President Bush will welcome new Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to the White House next week. The two leaders are expected to discuss three key issues:
--> The final border between Israel and the West Bank. The United States wants Israel to keep trying to negotiate with Palestinian Authority President Mamoud Abbas over a final border. Israel wants to define the border and pull out settlers unilaterally, contending that however much Abbas wants peace, the dominant Palestinian party, Hamas, is committed to Israel's destruction.--> U.S.-led sanctions against the Hamas government. Sanctions have left the Palestinian Authority broke and the Palestinian people on the verge of a humanitarian crisis. The two leaders will discuss how to provide essential aid without helping Hamas.
--> Iran and its nuclear ambitions. PM Olmert will press GWB on how far the Presidet will let diplomacy take its course and whether he would strike Iran before it became a nuclear power. Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has called for Israel to be wiped off the map. Israel favors diplomacy to end the standoff.
The PM meets with the President on Tuesday. Wednesday, PM Olmert will address a joint meeting of Congress. While in Washington, he will also have meetings with Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.
In the meantime, Mohamed ElBaradei appears to be trying to undercut the Bush-Olmert summit.
IAEA Head To Urge U.S. Moderation On Iran
(AP) VIENNA, Austria The head of the U.N. nuclear watchdog plans to urge the Bush administration next week to ease its push for tough U.N. Security Council action against Iran, diplomats said Friday.The diplomats, who demanded anonymity in exchange for divulging the confidential information, said Mohamed ElBaradei, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, will meet next week with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley and other top U.S. officials to press the administration to moderate its stance.
The initiative by ElBaradei, who has repeatedly called for negotiations instead of confrontation over Iran's refusal to give up uranium enrichment, comes at a crucial time.
Officials of the five Security Council nations plus Germany plan to meet Wednesday in London to review a package of planned incentives for Iran to agree to renewed talks on the issue -- and penalties if it continues to insist on its right to enrichment.
Several of the diplomats -- all of them accredited to the Vienna-based agency -- told The Associated Press that ElBaradei's Washington meetings would be Tuesday.
SCHEDULE:
— May 21: President George H.W. Bush (41) and Mrs. Barbara Bush serve as commencement speakers at the George Washington University in Washington, DC.
— May 23: Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert will meet with President Bush at the White House.
— May 23: The First Lady will attend the Centennial of Mesa Verde National Park in Colorado. The park was established established June 29, 1906 by President Theodore Roosevelt. She is scheduled to take part in a day's worth of festivities to highlight the 100th anniversary.
— May 27: President Bush delivers the commencement address at US Military Academy at West Point, NY.
— Jun. 19: President Bush delivers the commencement address at US Merchant Marine Academy in Kings Point, NY.
— Jun. 21: President Bush travels to Vienna, Austria to participate in the annual U.S.-EU Summit.
Q The new Italian Prime Minister says that the President's invasion of Iraq was a grave error. As the new kid on the block, can you give me the latest rationale the U.S. has for invading Iraq?
MR. SNOW: There has only been one rationale, as you know, Helen, and this that Saddam Hussein had resisted -- what is the proper number, 17 United Nations resolutions -- and had refused repeatedly to permit weapons inspectors to do their work, and consistent with that. And also we had cited other concerns in terms of democracy and human rights. That case has never changed.
Also the case laid out and voted by the United States Senate --
Q He finds that as a justification to invade a country where we had choke-hold sanctions, satellite surveillance --
MR. SNOW: Helen, I'm not going to get in another argument about the -- this is a three-year-old argument and you're trying to re-argue the case. The President made his case back then. The United States Senate voted overwhelmingly.
Q He did not make the case.
MR. SNOW: Well, in your opinion he didn't make the case. He made the case. He laid out his reasons.
Q He made the case, in your opinion?
MR. SNOW: Yes.
hi
Pinging you to a Saturday evening Dose.
Hiya :)
Iraq's new Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki presents his government to the Iraqi parliament in Baghdad. President Bush welcomed the formation of Iraq's new government as an "opportunity for progress" and pledged U.S. support for the challenges it will face.
Oh my goodness! Did I just win my first toaster????? :)
Hey!
Marine One carrying GWB prepares to land on the South Lawn of the White House.
Hi...Thanks for letting me leave a blank before my greeting post LOL!
Yeah you did. :-)
Thanks to you and the others for posting this thread so faithfully. I don't post very often but I do enjoy the Dose almost daily. I wish more Americans would get to see this informative thread each day. I have a hunch that W's #s would be much higher if they did. But then the media probably wouldn't publish them like they are now.
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