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Carter Says Rice Not Telling the Truth

By Matthew Bigg,
Reuters
Posted: 2008-04-24 06:29:16
ATLANTA (April 23) - Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter on Wednesday accused Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice of not telling the truth about warnings she said her department gave Carter not to speak to Hamas before a Middle East trip.


The State Department has said U.S. Assistant Secretary of State David Welch, the top U.S. diplomat for the Middle East, issued the warning before Carter, a veteran of Middle East diplomacy, went on his trip last week.

Rice said in Kuwait on Tuesday: "We counseled President Carter against going to the region and particularly against having contact with Hamas."

"President Carter has the greatest respect for ... Rice and believes her to be a truthful person. However, perhaps inadvertently, she is continuing to make a statement that is not true," a statement issued by the Carter center in Atlanta said on Wednesday.

"No one in the State Department or any other department of the U.S. government ever asked him (Carter) to refrain from his recent visit to the Middle East or even suggested that he not meet with Syrian President (Bashar) Assad or leaders of Hamas," it said.

It said Carter attempted to call Rice before making the trip and a deputy returned his call since Rice was in Europe.

"They had a very pleasant discussion for about 15 minutes, during which he never made any of the negative or cautionary comments described above. He never talked to anyone else," the statement said.

Carter had already on Monday, in an interview with National Public Radio, described as "absolutely false" any suggestion he had been warned not to meet Hamas.

"Private Citizen"

"The United States is not going to deal with Hamas and we certainly told President Carter that we did not think that meeting with Hamas was going to help the Palestinians," Rice said Tuesday while attending a conference in Kuwait.

The White House backed Rice and said events after Carter's meeting showed Hamas' true character.

Carter "is a private citizen and he made a decision to not comply with what the State Department asked him to do," White House spokeswoman Dana Perino told reporters on Wednesday.

Perino made an apparent reference to an attack on Saturday in which a Palestinian suicide bomber and two other gunmen were killed when they attacked a border crossing between the Gaza Strip and Israel, wounding 13 Israeli soldiers.

"Actions speak louder than words," said Perino of Hamas.

Hamas, which controls Gaza, is viewed as a terrorist organization by the United States, the European Union and Israel.

Carter, who met Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal in Syria over the weekend, is trying to draw the Islamist group into peace talks with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.

But Rice and other senior U.S. officials are concerned that Carter's meeting could confuse U.S.-brokered peace talks already moving at a slow pace between Abbas and Olmert.

Hamas won a 2006 election and briefly formed a unity government with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. It seized control of Gaza from Abbas' secular Fatah faction in fighting in June.

Copyright 2008 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Reuters content, including by framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters. Reuters shall not be liable for any errors or delays in the content, or for any actions taken in reliance thereon. All active hyperlinks have been inserted by AOL.
2008-04-23 14:55:29
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Recent Comments

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6669 comments

jj1pulido 08:32:15 PM Apr 27 2008

CARTER IS RIGHT ....ISRAEL IS WRONG

We Jews true the Torah,

issue a passionate condemnation of these latest Israeli atrocities.

The deaths and suffering of these people, the Palestinians,

is only the most recent example of the sixty - 60

year toll of human suffering

created by the Zionist enterprise in the Middle East.

All of the members of the United Nations Security Council

have agreed on a draft

statement condemning the Israeli clampdown on fuel and aid shipments into Gaza, as
well as the decision to seal border crossings into the

Palestinian enclave.

The whole
world is with Palestine!!!!!!!

The criticism of Benita Ferrero Waldner, European Union external relations
commissioner, was also strong as she accused ISRAEL OF CARRYING OUT
"COLLECTIVE PUNISHMENT" of Gaza's 1.5 million people

CARTER IS RIGHT.......... ISRAEL IS WRONG....

PALESTINIANS ARE TREATED LIKE SLAVES...

THEY HAVE NO FREEDOM....MORE THAN 60 YRS HAVE PASSED IN THIS ENVIRONMENT

reltna08 07:22:01 PM Apr 27 2008

Carter is nothing more than a postman for HAMAS. How does the Democrats get loaded up with so many idiots. You'd think by now someone from the DNC would have had this buffoon committed to Bellevue with a rubber room and a straight jacket. http://news.yahoo.com/s/uc/20080423/cm_uc_crmmax/op_195902

reltna08 07:19:52 PM Apr 27 2008

How many dopes can one party have? Gore gone into hiding, AGAIN! http://www.nysun.com/news/food-crisis-eclipsing-climate-change

This along with the current debacle with BO and Ms. Hillary we can't let them get near the power seat.... Then there is the crown jewel, Jimmy Carter... HELP

reltna08 07:18:05 PM Apr 27 2008

Thank God we have G.W. Can you imagine with the Gorcial in the W.H. how much bigger the mess would be. Greenpeace founder now backs nuclear power
http://www.idahostatesman.com/newsupdates/story/360625.html

You know the DNC is dreading what crazy Jimmy might say about this. Someone should dart and drop a net on him NOW....

ddsmith43081 02:41:00 PM Apr 27 2008

Tom Hayden Looks at Clinton's 60s Past
April 27, 2008 12:35 PM

In The Nation, former 60s radical Tom Hayden -- in an essay called "Why Hillary Makes My Wife Scream" -- hammers Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-NY, for attacking Sen. Barack Obama, D-Illinois, for his association with former Weather Underground member William Ayers. "Hillary is blind to her own roots in the sixties," Hayden writes. "She was in Chicago for three nights during the 1968 street confrontations. She chaired the 1970 Yale law school meeting where students voted to join a national student strike again an 'unconscionable expansion of a war that should never have been waged.' She was involved in the New Haven defense of Bobby Seale during his murder trial in 1970, as the lead scheduler of student monitors. ... She wrote that abused children were citizens with the same rights as their parents.

"Most significantly in terms of her recent attacks on Barack, after Yale law school, Hillary went to work for the left-wing Bay Ar

wititio03 05:36:16 PM Apr 26 2008

viva n los judios vivan los arabes viva yo

jj1pulido 11:30:17 AM Apr 26 2008

CARTER IS RIGHT ....ISRAEL IS WRONG

We Jews true the Torah, issue a passionate condemnation of these latest Israeli atrocities.
The deaths and suffering of these people, is only the most recent example of the sixty
year toll of human suffering created by the Zionist enterprise in the Middle East.

All of the members of the United Nations Security Council have agreed on a draft
statement condemning the Israeli clampdown on fuel and aid shipments into Gaza, as
well as the decision to seal border crossings into the Palestinian enclave. The whole
world is with Palestine!!!!!!!

The criticism of Benita Ferrero Waldner, European Union external relations
commissioner, was also strong as she accused ISRAEL OF CARRYING OUT
"COLLECTIVE PUNISHMENT" of Gaza's 1.5 million people

CARTER IS RIGHT.......... ISRAEL IS WRONG....

PALESTINIANS ARE TREATED LIKE SLAVES...

THEY HAVE NO FREEDOM....MORE THAN 60 YRS HAVE PASSED IN THIS ENVIRONMENT

jj1pulido 11:28:42 AM Apr 26 2008

The Israeli practice of collective punishment, disproportionate use of force, and targeted killings continued, as did the Palestinian militants practice of indiscriminate firing of mortars and rockets into Israel. According to Israeli and Palestinian civil society organizations, last year, more than a third of Palestinians killed were civilians. Ms. Arbour said the escalating violence had added to the already critical situation in the Gaza Strip, where, as the Secretary-General had recently stated, 1.4 million people were living under the most abhorrent conditions.

jj1pulido 11:28:00 AM Apr 26 2008

Palestinians in the Gaza Strip are living through their worst humanitarian crisis since the 1967 war because of the severe restrictions imposed by a report says today.
Movement is all but impossible and supplies of food and water, sewage treatment and basic healthcare can no longer be taken for granted. The economy has collapsed, unemployment is expected to rise to 50%, hospitals are suffering 12-hour power cuts and schools are failing - all creating a "humanitarian implosion", according to a coalition of eight UK humanitarian and human rights groups.

jj1pulido 11:27:05 AM Apr 26 2008

CARTER IS RIGHT.......... ISRAEL IS WRONG....

PALESTINIANS ARE TREATED LIKE SLAVES...

THEY HAVE NO FREEDOM....MORE THAN 60 YRS HAVE PASSED IN THIS ENVIRONMENT

It is a great embarrassment to us that the PALESTINIANS HAVE SUFFERED so much for so long AT THE HANDS OF those who masquerade as representatives of THE JEWISH people. Zionism is a movement that disregards the Jewish faith and its teachings on every area of life, including its commandment that we seek peace and justice towards all people.

Even Israel s prime minister s daughter, Miss Olmert, protests Gaza killings

Five HUMAN RIGHTS ORGANIZATIONS sent a letter to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and defense Minister Amir Peretz, calling on them to act immediately in order to put an end to the killing of Palestinian civilians in the territories, and to "uproot the elements that contribute to this killing

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