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Author Topic: Condi and Sergei square off
a lonely worker
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 9893

posted 30 June 2006 09:27 PM      Profile for a lonely worker     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Someone's going to be taken out hunting with Cheney over how this got out:

A Spat Over Iraq Revealed On Tape

quote:
Rice and Russian Caught Bickering At Private Lunch

The official State Department version is that "there was absolutely no friction whatsoever" between Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov during a meeting of foreign ministers in Moscow on Thursday.

But a recording of the ministers' private lunch, made when an audio link into the room was accidentally left on, showed that "Condi" and "Sergei" -- as they called each other -- had several long and testy exchanges over Iraq. The disputes concerned relatively minor wording changes in the five-page statement issued after the meeting, but grew out of basic differences between the two governments over how to proceed on Iraq.

The State Department's subsequent denial of tensions illustrates how officials manage the information that flows to the public from such closed-door meetings to create an image meant to advance foreign policy objectives. Reporters often have no independent account of such discussions.


Follow the link to read some of the conversation. Although it is mostly semantics, it does paint an interesting picture of just how little the USians will budge and how image is everything (as if none of us knew that already).

quote:
The Lavrov-Rice sparring continued at a subsequent news conference over issues such as Russia's growing control of natural gas supplies in Europe and threats to democratic institutions in Russia.

Reporters traveling with Rice transcribed the tape of the private luncheon but did not tell Rice aides about it until after a senior State Department official, briefing reporters on condition of anonymity as usual, assured them that "there was absolutely no friction whatsoever" between the two senior diplomats.

Once the flabbergasted official learned of the tape, he continued the briefing. He paused repeatedly, asking before describing a discussion whether reporters had heard it.


Too bad a tape of liitle Stevie and his bestest bud Georgie never made it out to the public.


From: Anywhere that annoys neo-lib tools | Registered: Jul 2005  |  IP: Logged

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