U.S. officials are denying Ehud Olmert’s claim that he persuaded President Bush to abstain from a U.N. Security Council call for a cease-fire, leaving Condoleezza Rice “shamed.”
“She was left shamed,” the Israeli prime minister told an audience in Ashkelon on Monday, referring to the U.S. secretary of state. “A resolution that she prepared and arranged, and in the end she did not vote in favor.”
Spokesmen at the State Department and White House on Tuesday called the Olmert statements inaccurate.
“This idea that somehow she was turned around on this issue is 100 percent completely untrue,” said State Department spokesman Sean McCormack.
“All that afternoon, Thursday afternoon — Secretary Rice’s recommendation and inclination the entire time was to abstain.”%u2028%u2028
“She was not at all embarrassed or ashamed of the actions that we took,” McCormack said.
The United States abstained in the Jan. 8 vote calling for an immediate cease-fire in the Gaza war, but did not exercise its right as one of five permanent members of the council to veto the resolution.
Rice later said the resolution, which is binding, had positive elements, including assigning blame to Hamas for the war. However, the United States did not agree with its call for an “immediate” cease-fire, she said, preferring to focus on negotiations in Cairo that were likelier to meet Israel’s demands for an end to Hamas rocket fire and weapons smuggling.
Olmert said he learned on the day of the vote that the United States would line up behind the resolution.
“I said ‘get me President Bush on the phone,’” Olmert said. “They said he was in the middle of giving a speech in Philadelphia. I said I didn’t care, I need to talk to him now. He got off the podium and spoke to me. I told him the United States could not vote in favor. It cannot vote in favor of such a resolution. He immediately called the secretary of state and told her not to vote in favor.”
There is an inconsistency in the Olmert story. According to the Los Angeles Times, Bush returned to the White House from Philadelphia hours before the U.N. vote, according to the president’s schedule.
A report last week in the conservative Weekly Standard said Rice favored the resolution but was overruled by Bush.
Several Jewish organizations criticized the U.S. failure to veto the resolution.
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