NO, NO, NO, IT WAS FOR CHIRAC....:

Outraged Bush turns up heat on Damascus after bomb (Roland Watson, 2/16/05, Times of London)

PRESIDENT BUSH recalled the US Ambassador to Syria for urgent talks yesterday as Washington moved towards a fresh showdown with Damascus.

Even before assassination of Rafik Hariri, the former Lebanese Prime Minister, on Monday, the White House had Syria firmly in its sights. For months the United States has repeatedly and directly accused Damascus of harbouring anti-Israeli terrorists and Sunni supporters of the Iraqi insurgency.

Mr Bush is now preparing to turn up the heat in the wake of the huge Beirut bomb, which left a crater 9ft deep in one of the city’s smartest neighbourhoods. The blast claimed 16 other lives and wounded 120.

Mr Bush, deploying one of the starkest diplomatic signals any country can send another, ordered Margaret Scobey, his Ambassador in Damascus, to return to the US.

U.S. Recalls Ambassador to Syria as Suspicions Over Bombing Grow (Megan K. Stack and Rania Abouzeid, February 16, 2005, LA Times)

[T]he assassination is expected to harden international resolve to force Syrian troops out of Lebanon and to strip Syria of support from nations that have been known to defend it, including France and Jordan.

Damascus has for months ignored a United Nations Security Council mandate to withdraw its forces from neighboring Lebanon.

Syrian officials have said that the smaller, weaker country, whose current president and many other leaders are staunch allies, depends on Syrian soldiers and intelligence agents to keep the peace among Lebanese factions.

The bombing shattered the logic of that argument. With or without Syrian involvement, someone managed to kill one of the nation's most celebrated politicians with about 650 pounds of explosives in broad daylight in the bustling city center.

"Yesterday's bombing calls into question the stated reason behind this presence of Syrian security forces: Lebanon's internal security," State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said at a Washington news conference announcing the recall of Ambassador Margaret Scobey. "The Lebanese people must be free to express their political preferences and choose their own representatives without intimidation and the threat of violence."

At the U.N., the Security Council condemned the assassination and asked Secretary-General Kofi Annan to investigate its cause and consequences. The U.S. asked the council to consider measures to punish the perpetrators, an American official said. The move could pave the way for another resolution demanding that Syria withdraw its troops.

Anne W. Patterson, the acting U.S. ambassador to the U.N., said: "Syria has got to get out of Lebanon…. I think that message has been very specific, and it's time for Syria to listen to that now."

U.S. officials did not specifically blame Syria for the killing, but Patterson said it was a direct result of Syria's presence in Lebanon. "This is only the most recent and frankly the most horrific demonstration of the effects of that foreign interference," she said.

The decision to recall Scobey appeared to be part of a broader Bush administration strategy to ratchet up pressure on Damascus to engage more seriously on such issues as its suspected support of the insurgency in Iraq and militant groups working to undermine the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.

The administration has also labeled the presence of 16,000 Syrian troops in Lebanon a source of instability, and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the relationship between the United States and Syria was "worsening."

"The withdrawal of the ambassador … relates to, unfortunately, the fact that the relationship has been for some time not moving in a positive direction. But this event in Lebanon, of course, is the proximate cause of the withdrawal," Rice said in Washington after meeting with the Egyptian foreign minister.

"We're not laying blame," Rice said of Hariri's slaying. "It needs to be investigated. That's the important point. However … Syria is in interference in the affairs of Lebanon. There are Syrian forces in Lebanon. Syria operates out of Lebanon."

The bombing provided the U.S. with a rare opportunity to work with France, with which Washington has had frosty relations since the invasion of Iraq.

Posted by Orrin Judd at February 16, 2005 7:11 AM