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Pelosi Defends Mideast Trip, Blasts Bush On Iraq

SAN FRANCISCO (CBS 5 / BCN) ― U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of San Francisco, accompanied by San Mateo Democratic Congressman Tom Lantos, again Tuesday defended their recent Mideast travels while challenging the Bush administration's running of the war in Iraq.

"The president wants a blank check and the Democrats will not give it to him," Pelosi vowed, saying she wants a specific timetables for troop withdrawals from Iraq included in any Congressional war spending bill.

The president has refused to go along and has repeatedly threatened to veto such a bill.

"He has said that an arbitrary timetable, in which we send a save-the-date card to the Iraqis, is unacceptable to him," said White House spokeswoman Dana Perino.

So despite an offer from the president Tuesday to talk things over at the White House, Pelosi and U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada are having nothing of it.

"What the president invited us to do was come to his office so that we could accept, without any discussion, the bill that he wants," Pelosi said during a news conference at San Francisco's Federal Building. "That's not worthy of the concerns of the American people and I join with Senator Reid in rejecting an invitation of that kind."

Pelosi said she and Reid were still willing to talk to Bush, but not if the condition is that there can be no "serious negotiations."

"The American people have lost faith in President Bush's conduct of this war," Pelosi asserted.

She also rebuffed criticism from the Bush administration for her meeting last week with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

"Unless you communicate, you cannot understand each other you cannot reach agreement," said Pelosi, who came under fire from the White House because they consider Assad a sponsor of terrorism.

The meeting came as Pelosi led a congressional delegation of four Democratic committee chairmen, another Democrat who is the House's only Muslim and one Republican on a trip to the Middle East.

The group visited Israel, Lebanon, the Palestinian territories, Syria and Saudi Arabia.

Pelosi was criticized for allegedly giving Assad a message that differed from Bush's position when she discussed an overture by Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert for a possible resumption of peace talks.

But the speaker said, "there was no difference between the message the President is setting forth and the message of our group. Our message to President Assad was a very direct one and was very consistent with President Bush's message."

She said the group made clear that peace talks with Syria can't begin until that country openly takes steps to stop supporting terrorism.

Given that U.S. soldiers in Iraq are being killed by terrorist fighters crossing in from Syria, Pelosi was asked what message she was sending to those soldiers when she claims to go to Syria "in friendship, hope and determined that the road to Damascus is the road to peace."

Pelosi first deferred to Lantos, but then answered: "I would hope those soldiers would know we were there to speak for them to say to the president: this must stop."

One of Pelosi's staunchest critics, Vice President Dick Cheney, accused her of "bad behavior" in her message to Assad.

Asked about that comment, Pelosi said, "I think it's an indication of the poverty of ideas of this administration to bring peace to the region."

Lantos noted at the news conference that three Republican congressmen visited the Syrian president three days before Pelosi's delegation.

Lantos said of the criticism of Pelosi, "I do not know whether it is more pathetic or more hypocritical."

Lantos, who chairs the House Foreign Affairs Committee, called the trip "a magnificent visit" by a "well-balanced delegation."

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