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Bush Apologizes in Call to Karzai (Washington Post, 3/11/2003)

President Bush called Afghan President Hamid Karzai last week to apologize for the way he was treated in a meeting with members of a Senate committee on Capitol Hill late last month ...

Karzai was placed at a witness table looking up at the senators, the usual layout for people summoned to testify at a hearing. There were several skeptical and hostile questions that Karzai did not expect and had not prepared for ...

"We thought these people were our friends, but now we really don't know," a senior Afghan government official said. "This was a protocol blunder, and there was real insensitivity on the part of some senators. They were talking about nitty-gritty problems in Afghanistan and missing the big picture that there is a war on terrorism going on while we try to make a country again from scratch."...

In addition to being seated at a table below the committee members, Karzai was scolded by some of them.

Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.) warned that if Karzai told the committee everything was going well, "the next time you come back, then your credibility will be in question." Hagel said later that he felt the administration had "coached" Karzai.

Holding a recent report released by the advocacy group Human Rights Watch, Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) told Karzai that "police in Herat are detaining women and girls caught alone with unrelated men, are being forced to submit to medical exams to see if they have recently had sexual relations."

The Karzai government is trying to expand its authority across the country, but it still has only limited control in many areas, including the western city of Herat.

Perhaps the Senators did not realize that foreign leaders, particularly those from cultures that demand respect for personal honor, may not endure combative interrogation as placidly as Republican judicial nominees. Posted by Paul Jaminet at March 11, 2003 1:42 PM