Irish people who protest against US President George Bush's visit to Ireland this weekend should remember that people in Baghdad who protested before the toppling of Saddam Hussein had their tongues cut out, national security adviser Dr Condoleezza Rice said yesterday. Conor O'Clery reports from the White House.
They should not assume that it was their gift alone to exercise freedoms without giving freedom to others, as in Iraq, she stated in a briefing in the White House on the president's visit to Ireland and Turkey this weekend.
Dr Rice and other senior officials, including US Secretary of State Mr Colin Powell, will accompany Mr Bush to the EU-US summit in Dromoland, Co Clare tomorrow and the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation summit in Turkey on Sunday.
The briefing yesterday afternoon left a strong impression that the visit to Ireland is seen in the White House largely as a stop-over on the way to Turkey, the more important strategic meeting where Mr Bush will press NATO countries for more help in defeating Iraqi insurgents.
"The president intends at the EU-US summit to continue to demonstrate the strength of our relationship with the European Union, including discussions that have now been going on for a number of years on combating terrorism, countering the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and spreading prosperity through open and free trade," Dr Rice said.
But another senior White House official, speaking on conditions of anonymity, put it more bluntly: "These summits are regularly scheduled. This is their \ turn to host it, fundamentally that's the reason we're heading out there."
The prospect of the visit to Ireland being marked by protests clearly irks the Bush administration. Asked about the prospect of tens of thousands of Irish demonstrators showing their opposition to the US-led invasion of Iraq, Dr Rice said: "First of all in terms of protesters, that's what democracy is all about.
"Every time I'm asked this question I remind people that actually now people in Baghdad - and also in Kabul - have the right to protest. They were under the most brutal regime where you had your tongue cut out if you protested.
"So the people who protest anywhere in the world, Ireland or wherever else, when they protest I hope that they will just remember that what has been delivered as a result of this war effort is the freedom to exercise the very liberties that they are exercising to other people who were denied them. And not just denied them, but punished for it, oppressed by it, killed by it, tortured for it.
"It's very important that people who live in freedom do not assume that it is their gift alone to live in freedom, but understand that sometimes the gift has to be extended to others."
She returned to the theme when asked about how the US viewed the relationship with Ireland given that the Government continued to allow US troops to transit through Shannon airport despite domestic opposition.
"In terms of the Taoiseach and Irish support [for Shannon\], I think the Irish understand political processes when they have been through periods of great violence and terrorism," she said, in an evident reference to the Troubles. "They understand what it means to try and build a society, to have economic prosperity in what used just to be considered a chaotic situation.
"I very often find myself when I'm talking to groups of Europeans in general asking people to look back at their own history and to look at the darkest points in their own history and to ask what it must have been like to have been abandoned in those dark moments."
The Iraqi people were going through a difficult period and it was up to "those who live in freedom to stay with them and not abandon them."
This will be the message Mr Bush takes to Turkey Dr Rice said. He would be discussing with NATO what they could do to help the Iraqis in their quest for stability.
White House officials distributed a copy of a letter from Mr Allawi to NATO secretary general Jaap De Hoop Scheffer saying; "At this critical juncture of our history we need the urgent help of the international community, and especially NATO, in the crucial areas of training inside Iraq, equipping and other forms of technical assistance to defeat the terrorist threat."
Dr Rice echoed Mr Allawi's appeal for equipment and training. She also dismissed yesterday's bloodshed across Iraq as a mere "uptic" in the violence. The Bush administration had "fully expected" that terrorists would try to "derail the process of building a stable Iraq" and challenge the transition to sovereignty, she said. "Iraqi democracy is going to have to be defended by Iraq and the beginning of this is for NATO to answer the request for some help in training."
Mr Bush, she added, would challenge NATO not to miss this "historic opportunity." The senior administration official, at a separate briefing, said that regarding the EU-US summit, "there is a strong will on both sides to put the disagreements of 2003 in the past".