As diplomat, Cheney keeps quiet
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia – Vice President Dick Cheney didn’t travel halfway around the world to play games, but there he was, stuck in the middle of the Saudi Arabian desert, tossing balls in the sand with King Abdullah.
Their contest, the Saudi version of lawn bowling, played out in private, and so did the diplomacy that followed. That’s just the way Cheney likes it.
In the high-stakes, high-profile world of Middle East diplomacy, Cheney is the Bush administration’s quiet envoy. While Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice gets the headlines, the crowds and the media attention, the vice president usually works well out of public view.
Cheney’s latest visit, a swing last week through Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait that ended Wednesday, highlighted his below-the-radar diplomatic style. The trip spanned three days – two nights on Air Force 2 wrapped around a grueling day of meetings in all three countries.
His mission came at a tense time in a region where tension is the norm. Iran is moving ahead with its nuclear ambitions, Israelis and Palestinians are adjusting to life without Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, and Iraq is struggling to build a government in the midst of terrorist violence. In addition, President Bush’s efforts to promote democracy have put new strains on U.S. relations with Egypt, Saudi Arabia and other Arab nations where autocrats rule.
So did Cheney make progress on any of those issues?
He and his advisers aren’t saying. In fact, Cheney had almost nothing to say about his trip.
Over the course of about 62 hours on the road, the vice president appeared in public for all of about 30 minutes. His only public comments were brief pleasantries with foreign leaders at photo-ops or airport arrival ceremonies.
Other government officials, including previous vice presidents, often viewed foreign trips as a chance to promote administration policies or themselves. Not Cheney. He declined to talk on the record to the handful of reporters on Air Force 2 or to provide any details of his conversations. When a senior official finally briefed reporters on the flight home about what had happened in Cheney’s meetings, he did so on condition he not be identified, then said nothing revealing anyway.
So traveling halfway round the world with America’s vice president on an important diplomatic mission yielded this alone to public view: Cheney shaking hands and bantering with his hosts.
In Kuwait, he was greeted as a liberator. His late-night visit, a condolence call after the Jan. 15 death of Kuwaiti leader Sheik Jaber Al Ahmed Al Sabah, came on the 15th anniversary of the start of Desert Storm, the Pentagon’s code name for the 1991 war.
“The liberation of Kuwait was directly linked to you, Mr. Vice President,” Sheik Sabah Al Ahmed Al Sabah, the Kuwaiti prime minister, told Cheney. “You were secretary of defense.”
“Well, we did it together as allies,” Cheney replied.
In Saudi Arabia, home to one-fourth of the world’s known oil reserves, the vice president was honored with a visit to Abdullah’s desert hideaway. Cheney’s motorcade, protected by a helicopter escort and Saudi security forces stationed along the route, swept past grazing camels on the hour-long drive from Riyadh’s King Khalid International Airport.
Abdullah, accompanied by at least two dozen members of the royal family, took Cheney to one of the king’s favorite spots – a hilltop tent in the middle of a refuge for ostriches, gazelles and Arabian oryx, an endangered antelope that’s considered one of the world’s rarest mammals.
The tent, a roomy, four-pole affair with electric outlets, could hardly be called rustic. Tan couches lined the walls, and the sand floor was covered with 21 Persian-style rugs. The king and his guest had a splendid view of the desert, or they could watch a large-screen television that was tuned to an Arabic news channel.
Cheney, wearing a dark business suit and brown shoes, put his game face on when Abdullah challenged him to a round of boules, a diversion that the Saudis imported from France. The game, similar to English lawn bowling and its Italian cousin, bocce, is intended to be played on hard dirt, but this being Saudi Arabia, the king plays on sand.
Joking off to the side, two of the king’s retainers predicted victory for Abdullah.
“He’s really good. He always wins,” one royal aide said with a knowing smile.
“That’s royal prerogative,” his buddy explained.
Reporters traveling with Cheney were escorted to another tent before the game started and never got the final score.
In Egypt, President Hosni Mubarak never appeared in public with Cheney during the vice president’s stop in Cairo. Mubarak has made no secret of his resentment over U.S. efforts to encourage democracy. Mubarak, in power for 25 years, recently won a fifth term in an election widely viewed as rigged.
Later, toward the end of a long day, a reporter tried to question Cheney during his brief visit with Saad Hariri, the son of assassinated Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.
Cheney cut the question off.
“This is a photo op,” he said, as aides hustled reporters out of the room.