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Mexicans Feel Upstaged by US Raid on Baghdad
from commondreams.org
Mexicans Feel Upstaged by US Raid on Baghdad
Observers find it odd that Bush's visit, bombing of Iraq happened at same time.
by Paul Knox
MEXICO CITY -- Why would George W. Bush set up Vicente Fox Quesada, just to knock him down?
That is one question being asked here as Mexicans sift the ashes of Friday's meeting between their President and his U.S. counterpart, and the simultaneous bombing of Baghdad by U.S. and British warplanes, which Iraq said killed three civilians and wounded 30.
Mr. Fox was beaming as he and Mr. Bush said they had formed a "partnership for prosperity," including closer co-operation on immigration, drug trafficking and North American energy supplies.
But for some commentators it seemed odd, if not sinister, that the bombing grabbed world attention just as Mr. Bush was making a much-heralded effort to improve relations with his country's southern neighbour.
"Why Now?" screamed a front-page headline yesterday in the English-language Mexico City News, part of a major Mexican newspaper chain.
The daily Reforma repeated a radio host's calculation that bombs began raining down on Baghdad just as Mr. Bush was kissing the cheek of Mr. Fox's mother, Mercedes Quesada de Fox, at her home in San Cristobal village.
Andres Rozental, Mr. Fox's ambassador-at-large and a long-time observer of Mexico-U.S. relations, said in an interview that the unexpected bombing had only a minor effect on the presidential get-together, which otherwise produced the results desired.
"The surprise wasn't particularly useful in terms of focusing attention from outside on the meeting," Mr. Rozental said, stressing that his reaction was unofficial. "But I don't think it distracted from the meeting itself."
But the political weekly Proceso said the episode thwarted Mr. Fox's desire to show the world a modern, forward-looking Mexico. "Fox's propaganda strategy defeated by the bombing of Iraq," it said, adding that U.S. television networks dropped their coverage of the visit as soon as the attack on Iraq began.
Several Mexican reports noted that White House reporters travelling with Mr. Bush focused almost exclusively on Iraq during the joint press conference. But it's hardly unusual for a U.S. president to be questioned intensively about breaking news in one part of the world while travelling in another.
Still, Mr. Bush ostentatiously chose Mexico as his first foreign destination, with a flurry of talk about giving Latin America a higher profile in U.S. foreign policy. For his trip to be overshadowed by U.S. military action seemed almost perverse -- unless the point was to surround a man lacking international experience with an aura of global power.
The Associated Press quoted aides to Mr. Bush as saying he approved the Iraq mission Thursday morning, but left the timing to military commanders, although he knew it would probably happen before he left Mexico.
Some suggested Mr. Bush had tricked Mr. Fox into tacitly supporting U.S. aggression.
"Bush came to Mexico not just to propose and accept that prosperity will be shared . . . but also to share his war -- to force the Mexican government to show it is his ally," veteran political columnist Miguel Angel Granados Chapa wrote in Reforma.
Mr. Fox declined Friday afternoon to say whether he approved of the bombing, telling reporters to wait for a statement from Mexico's foreign ministry.
The statement, which arrived late in the evening, was ambiguous. It said force should be used only in accordance with the UN Charter, avoiding taking sides in the long-running dispute between the U.S. and its critics over whether air strikes against Iraq have UN authorization.
It also called on Iraq to respect the no-fly zones in the north and south.
Baghdad insists the allied flights are illegal and a violation of its sovereignty.
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