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06-15-2004, 02:54 AM
Bush foreign policy under attack
A group of senior former US government officials will release a statement later this week condemning President George W Bush's foreign policy.
The group call themselves Diplomats and Military Commanders for Change.
They say Mr Bush's policies have made the US more isolated and less safe, and damaged its standing in the world.
The BBC's Jon Leyne in Washington says former officials have criticised Mr Bush before, but this time the critics are especially well-respected.
They include William Crowe, who as chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, was America's top military officer and Admiral Stansfield Turner, a former director of the CIA.
The statement follows criticism last month by 53 former diplomats who accused the administration of undermining US credibility in the Arab world with its strong support for Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.
The British government has also come under fire, with 52 former officials attacking Prime Minister Tony Blair's support for Washington over Iraq and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
'Arrogance and scorn'
Those signing the statement say they believe the Bush administration has made the international outlook more unstable and dangerous.
"A lot of people felt the work they had done over their lifetime in trying to build a situation in which the United States was respected and could lead the rest of the world was now undermined by this administration - by the arrogance, by the refusal to listen to others, the scorn for multilateral organisations," William Harrop, ambassador to Israel under President George Bush Senior, told the Los Angeles Times.
The signatories have also attacked US policy on Iraq, saying that all the assumptions made by the administration before the invasion have been proved wrong.
"It's a plea with the president to more urgently seek multilateral support for what we're doing in Iraq, to go back and forth in strengthening the alliances we've traditionally worked with," Admiral Crowe told the BBC.
'9/10 people'
The group is made up of both Democrats and Republicans.
Known critics of the administration were deliberately excluded.
However, several individual signatories have said they will back Mr Bush's Democrat challenger John Kerry and others say that the document is in effect calling for the president's removal.
"It is clear that the statement calls for the defeat of the administration," Mr Harrop said.
But supporters of the administration said the former officials were simply trying to hide the inadequacy of their own policies.
"This seems like a statement from 9/10 people [who don't see] the importance of 9/11 and the way that should have changed our thinking," Cliff May, president of the conservative Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, told the LA Times.
A group of senior former US government officials will release a statement later this week condemning President George W Bush's foreign policy.
The group call themselves Diplomats and Military Commanders for Change.
They say Mr Bush's policies have made the US more isolated and less safe, and damaged its standing in the world.
The BBC's Jon Leyne in Washington says former officials have criticised Mr Bush before, but this time the critics are especially well-respected.
They include William Crowe, who as chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, was America's top military officer and Admiral Stansfield Turner, a former director of the CIA.
The statement follows criticism last month by 53 former diplomats who accused the administration of undermining US credibility in the Arab world with its strong support for Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.
The British government has also come under fire, with 52 former officials attacking Prime Minister Tony Blair's support for Washington over Iraq and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
'Arrogance and scorn'
Those signing the statement say they believe the Bush administration has made the international outlook more unstable and dangerous.
"A lot of people felt the work they had done over their lifetime in trying to build a situation in which the United States was respected and could lead the rest of the world was now undermined by this administration - by the arrogance, by the refusal to listen to others, the scorn for multilateral organisations," William Harrop, ambassador to Israel under President George Bush Senior, told the Los Angeles Times.
The signatories have also attacked US policy on Iraq, saying that all the assumptions made by the administration before the invasion have been proved wrong.
"It's a plea with the president to more urgently seek multilateral support for what we're doing in Iraq, to go back and forth in strengthening the alliances we've traditionally worked with," Admiral Crowe told the BBC.
'9/10 people'
The group is made up of both Democrats and Republicans.
Known critics of the administration were deliberately excluded.
However, several individual signatories have said they will back Mr Bush's Democrat challenger John Kerry and others say that the document is in effect calling for the president's removal.
"It is clear that the statement calls for the defeat of the administration," Mr Harrop said.
But supporters of the administration said the former officials were simply trying to hide the inadequacy of their own policies.
"This seems like a statement from 9/10 people [who don't see] the importance of 9/11 and the way that should have changed our thinking," Cliff May, president of the conservative Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, told the LA Times.