Bush defend his record in meeting with Pope
US President George Bush, in his first meeting with Pope Benedict XVI, defended his humanitarian record around the globe, telling the papal leader today about US efforts to battle Aids in Africa.
After posing for photos, Benedict asked the president about his meetings with leaders of other industrialised nations in Germany – the pontiff’s homeland. Then, the topic changed to international aid.
“I’ve got a very strong Aids initiative,” Bush said, sitting with Benedict at a small desk in the pope’s private library at the Vatican.
The president promised the pope he would work to get the US Congress to double the current US commitment for combating Aids in Africa to €30bn over the next five years.
The pope also asked the president about his meeting in Germany with Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has expressed opposition to a US missile shield in Europe.
“The dialogue with Putin was also good?” the pope asked.
Bush, apparently eyeing photographers and reporters who were about to be escorted from the room, replied: “Umm. I’ll tell you in a minute”.
In a statement, the Vatican said Bush had “warm” talks with the pope and the Vatican’s Number two official, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone. They discussed international politics, particularly in the Middle East, the Israel-Palestinian conflict, Lebanon, the “worrisome situation in Iraq” and the “critical conditions in which the Christian communities (in Iraq) are found,” the statement said.
The pontiff expressed his hope for a “regional” and “negotiated” solution of conflicts and crises that afflict the region, the Vatican said. Attention was also give to Africa, the humanitarian crisis in Darfur and Latin America.
They also discussed moral and religious questions relating to human rights and religious freedom, the defence and promotion of life, marriage and the family and sustainable development, the Vatican said.
The pontiff gave the president a drawing of St Peter’s Basilica, an official Vatican medal and coins.
The president gave the pope a white walking sticking made by a former homeless man in Dallas, Texas. It was inscribed with the Ten Commandments.
Bush’s activities in Rome were conducted under heavy security. Thousands of police deployed in central Rome to counter demonstrations by anti-globalisation groups and far-left parties.
Dozens of trucks and buses surrounded the Colosseum, the Piazza Venezia and other historic venues as scores of officers, some in riot gear, poured from their vehicles. The main boulevard leading to St Peter’s Square and the Vatican was closed to traffic. Police and helicopters guarded the area.
Bush was greeted in the courtyard of the Vatican by members of the Swiss Guard, the elite papal security corps dressed in their distinctive orange, blue and red-stripped uniforms.
He arrived in Rome last night, after a stop in the Czech Republic, three days at a summit of the world’s eight major industrialised countries on Germany’s northern coast, and a three-hour visit to Poland.
The president is to stay in Rome tonight before going on to Albania and Bulgaria.
Italian-US relations have been strained recently.
Hours before Bush’s arrival, the first trial involving the CIA’s extraordinary rendition programme opened in Milan. Along with the 26 Americans on trial for the abduction of an Egyptian cleric, a US soldier is on trial in Rome for the March 2005 killing of an Italian agent in Baghdad. In both cases, the US citizens are being tried in absentia.
Italy also has withdrawn troops from Iraq and is reluctant to send additional soldiers to Afghanistan.
Washington is concerned that US troops, along with those from Canada and Britain and elsewhere, are the only Nato countries sending forces to fight the Taliban in the most violent areas in the south.
Other Nato-contributing countries, such as Germany, France and Italy, restrict the use of their forces to relatively peaceful areas of the north.
