By: Robert Burns, AP Military Writer (AP) Globe-trotting can take a toll, as Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld jokingly acknowledged on the last stop of a 10-day trip crammed with troop talks, news conferences and formal meetings with prime ministers, presidents, kings, emirs, and other potentates.
"Wait a minute! I'm an old man, and I'm tired," he exclaimed at a Pakistani reporter who had leaped to his feet to piggyback his question onto two others who had fired back-to-back questions.
"I can barely handle one at a time, let alone three of 'em," the 69-year-old defense secretary said as he prepared to head home. Over the past week and a half he had visited Europe (Britain, Belgium, Germany, and Estonia), the Persian Gulf (Kuwait, Bahrain, and Qatar) and South Asian rivals India and Pakistan.
The trip, which included 43 hours of flying time, was the longest of Rumsfeld's 17 months in office. He was returning to Washington on Friday.
Rumsfeld prides himself on being able to think on his feet.
After seeing the stir caused by his response to one particularly pointed question at a news conference in Kuwait, he probably wished he had thought a little longer before offering a seemingly undiplomatic analogy.
A reporter asked Rumsfeld why he was so cool to the idea of Kuwait accepting Iraq's offer to restore normal relations. Iraq had occupied the tiny Gulf state in 1990, precipitating the Persian Gulf War.
Cozying up to Kuwait, Rumsfeld said, was like "the lion inviting the chicken to embrace."
Had he just called the Kuwaitis chickens?
The next day in Qatar, an Arab reporter asked Rumsfeld if he didn't think his comment was demeaning to Kuwait and other small Gulf states. When the reporter spoke the word "chicken," Rumsfeld could be heard breathing the word "lamb," but he went on to defend his intentions.
As to whether he had been demeaning, Rumsfeld said, "To the extent that anyone suggests that, I would suggest they not suggest it" because he had not meant to make an inappropriate comment.
At Geilenkirchen Air Base in Germany, Rumsfeld was fielding questions from an assembly of troops when he noticed his aides subtly signaling to wrap it up and head on to his next stop.
"I'm just a piece of meat," he told the troops with exaggerated exasperation. "They move me from here to there."
When Rumsfeld wants to avoid being pinned down on a touchy subject he raises ambiguity to an art form.
In Tallinn, the capital of Estonia, he was asked: Of the nine countries seeking membership in the NATO alliance, how many would the United States like to see get invited to join?
"A good number," was his first response.
"A handful-plus," he said when it came up again.
And when asked yet again, he allowed as how "a relatively robust" number were likely to make it.
Rumsfeld can be blunt, as he showed several times during his tour of the Persian Gulf when asked what he thought of the Iraqi government's assertion that it has no weapons of mass destruction.
"They're lying," he said.
The next day, in Bahrain, Rumsfeld went even further when the subject of Saddam Hussein came up.
Not only is the Iraqi leader a liar, he said, but a "world-class liar."
The governments of Kuwait, Bahrain, and Qatar had nary a word to say publicly about Rumsfeld's visit. No government official appeared with Rumsfeld during his news conferences at each stop.
During his visit to Bahrain, the newspapers, however, were not silent.
An editorial in
Akhbar al-Khalij asserted that the Bush administration had failed to get the message that the Gulf countries were interested in improving relations with Iraq.
The editorial blasted Rumsfeld for making "rude statements" about Iraq during his stop in Kuwait.
"There is nothing new about the American obscenity, which is usually faced with Arab silence, that reflects the humiliation level that our Arab leaders have reached," it concluded.
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