Cowboy Bush cracks whip and tells Sharon, Abbas to get in line

United States President George W. Bush says he wants to push along the Middle East peace process like a cowboy on horseback herding cattle.

Mr Bush emerged yesterday from a meeting with Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in Aqaba, Jordan, optimistic that "great hope" was coming to the region.

"I used the expression 'ride herd'. I don't know if anybody understood it in the meeting," he said.

"I show up when they need me to call people to account, to praise or to say, 'Wait a minute, you told me, you know, in Jordan, you would do this. You haven't done it. Why? Back up. What is it?"' he said.

In the first real backing to the US roadmap for peace, Mr Bush won an Israeli pledge to begin to uproot some settlement outposts and a Palestinian call to end armed struggle for a state at the three-way summit in the Jordanian port city on the Red Sea.

The President said he expected Israel to dismantle the settler outposts as promised and reassure him that "security is at the top of our agenda, just like it's at the top of his [Sharon's] agenda" after 32 months of Israeli-Palestinian violence.

Bush also pledged US financial assistance for the Palestinians to help rebuild their security forces, which have been decimated by the Israeli military.

The plans have struck staunch opposition. Israeli settlers have marched in opposition and Palestinian militants say they will not give up their struggle.

Part of the summit was spent outdoors, when the three leaders chatted informally, sitting in chairs. Mr Bush said it was his idea and that he wanted to "observe the interplay between the two" and see if they could relax around each other.

"The body language was positive. There was not a lot of friction or hostility ... I didn't need, for example, to be Mr Chatty. There was a natural tendency [by Abbas and Sharon] to want to talk."

Mr Bush said his style was an informal one. "I'm not a very formal guy to begin with," he said.

"I'm also not very analytical. I don't spend a lot of time talking about myself. I think one of my styles is to relax people."

As Bush flew to Qatar on the final leg of his trip, he said he was mindful of previous failures.

He recalled his predecessor, Bill Clinton, was close to a peace deal in 2000 only to see it fall apart. "There are killers lurking in the neighbourhood," he said.



"There are people who have openly declared their hostility to Israel, and their desire to destroy Israeli citizens ... people who would rather have chaos than a state."

- REUTERS

The agreement:

* Israel to remove some West Bank settler outposts

* Palestinian call to end armed struggle for a state

* US cash to rebuild Palestinian security forces