Representative Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic speaker of the US House of Representatives who was returning yesterday from a trip through the Middle East, said she thinks her mission helped President George W. Bush because it showed the US was unified against terrorism despite being divided over Iraq.
Bush and other Republicans have been on the attack since Pelosi met Syrian President Bashar Assad, with whom the Bush administration refuses to have any dealings. Bush's complaints about the Damascus meeting have been frequent and strong.
"Our message was President Bush's message," Pelosi said in a telephone interview on Friday.
"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.
Lawmakers frequently travel to the Middle East, but Pelosi's position as the most powerful person in the House and second in the line of succession to the president, afforded her extra attention.
Pelosi said on Friday: "I have no regrets," considering "the conversations we had, and the focus that we had on fighting terrorism and bringing peace to the Middle East."
At home, the Republicans criticized her most heavily for her talks in Syria and Israel. Vice President Dick Cheney called it "bad behavior" on her part.
After meeting on Wednesday with Assad, Pelosi said she had delivered a message from Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert that Israel was ready for peace talks. Pelosi told reporters in the region that Assad had replied that "he's ready to engage in negotiations for peace with Israel."
Olmert's office later issued a statement saying such talks could take place only if Syria stopped helping terror groups.
Pelosi said on Friday she had paid no attention to the dustup back in the US.
She also said the delegation was not trying to cut deals between Syria and Israel but rather "assessing the ground truth" to inform spending decisions made by Congress.
"What others were saying and doing was many miles away, in a different time zone, and had no impact on our trip except to call more attention to it," Pelosi said.
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