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Politics

Pelosi calls Syria trip helpful to Bush, U.S.

By ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published April 7, 2007

WASHINGTON - House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, deflecting White House criticism of her trip to Syria, said Friday she thinks the mission helped President Bush because it showed the United States is unified against terrorism despite being divided over Iraq.

Pelosi, D-Calif., met with Syrian President Bashar Assad in Damascus this week against Bush's wishes.

"Our message was President Bush's message," Pelosi said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press from Portugal, where she stopped briefly en route back to the United States.

"The funny thing is, I think we may have even had a more powerful impact with our message because of the attention that was called to our trip," she said. "It became clear to President Assad that even though we have our differences in the United States, there is no division between the president and the Congress and the Democrats on the message we wanted him to receive."

Bush this week assailed Pelosi for making the trip to Damascus, saying it sent mixed messages to the Syrian government, which his administration considers to be a state supporter of terrorism.

"There is nothing funny about the impact her trip to Syria has had," said National Security Council spokesman Gordon Johndroe, who is with Bush in Texas. "On the contrary, these visits have convinced the Assad regime that its actions in support of terrorists have no consequences."

She was most heavily criticized for her talks with Syria and Israel. Vice President Dick Cheney called it "bad behavior" on her part to try to broker a deal between the two - a sensitive matter that would be considered the sole province of the executive branch.

[Last modified April 7, 2007, 01:51:10]