The Rice snub: What the State Department is saying

On Monday night, my colleague and Washington Bureau Chief Tom Clark reported that U.S. Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice had cancelled a planned visit to Canada as a means of registering official Washington’s disappointment with Canada’s decision, announced last week, not to participate in a U.S.-led ballistic missille defence (BMD) plan.

My Globe and Mail colleagues reported this, as well, in Tuesday’s paper and my friends at The Toronto Star ran a similar piece on Tuesday.

Separately, my old National Post colleague Joel-Dennis Bellavance broke the same story Tuesday for his paper La Presse. Bellavance had a crucial new detail, though: President Bush had yet to return a phone call placed by Prime Minister Paul Martin. Now, failing to return a phone call may be a small matter to you and me but to heads of state, the prompt returning of phone calls is a big deal.

As Tom reported last night, this whole tempest about Rice’s cancellation of a meeting in Canada and Bush’s inability to return a phone call is an elegant way of letting the U.S. show its unhappiness/displeasure with Canada for failing to sign on to a continental BMD plan without having a senior political leader actually come out say the U.S. is annoyed at Canada.

With that background, here’s the transcript from Tuesday’s daily press briefing held by U.S. State Department spokesman Adam Ereli. The questioner for most of this, I believe, is Tom Clark.

 QUESTION: There are several reports this morning in the Canadian press about
 Secretary Rice postponing a trip to Canada. It's interpreted as a sign of
 displeasure after Canada decided not to be part of the anti-ballistic missile
 shield defense. And is this interpretation accurate?

 MR. ERELI: No.

 QUESTION: And also, are you working towards setting up a date, a new date for
 the trip to Canada for Secretary Rice?

 MR. ERELI: No and yes. It's inaccurate and, I think, unwarranted to make a
<!–
D(["mb","  relationship between Secretary Rice meeting her Canadian counterpart in missile
 defense. The fact of the matter is the United States and Canada have an
 important and meaningful and strong bilateral relationship. It is a bilateral
 relationship to which we attach great importance and which we value highly.

 Secretary Albright — I\'m sorry, where did that come from? (Laughter.) Put a
 big asterisk on that one.

 Secretary Rice fully intends to meet with her Canadian counterpart and
 discussions about when a date that is mutually convenient have been going on
 and continue. It\'s a question of logistics, finding a suitable date.

 I would also note they\'re meeting in London today so that the point to take
 away from all this is that this is an important relationship to us. We\'re going
 to have a meeting. We\'re working to nail down the logistics for that meeting
 and the issue of missile defense is a separate issue. It\'s one part of a much
 bigger, more complex relationship that — and should be put in its proper
 context. It was a decision that we\'ve — the Canadian Government made. We\'ve
 made clear what our views are, but as I said before, we have a broad and
 complex relationship that\'s going to go forward.

 QUESTION: In terms of dates, we were talking about mid-April. Those were the
 dates that were being discussed.

 MR. ERELI: Well —

 QUESTION: Can we expect it to be much later?

 MR. ERELI: I\'m not going to feed the speculation of dates. If you cover the
 Department of State and scheduling of the Secretary and senior officials, you
 will know that until there\'s an official announcement made, it\'s all in the
 realm of the hypothetical and planning. And that\'s why we don\'t talk about
 dates until we make an announcement because we don\'t want to create facts
“,1]
);
//–> relationship between Secretary Rice meeting her Canadian counterpart in missile
 defense. The fact of the matter is the United States and Canada have an
 important and meaningful and strong bilateral relationship. It is a bilateral
 relationship to which we attach great importance and which we value highly.

 Secretary Albright — I'm sorry, where did that come from? (Laughter.) Put a
 big asterisk on that one.

 Secretary Rice fully intends to meet with her Canadian counterpart and
 discussions about when a date that is mutually convenient have been going on
 and continue. It's a question of logistics, finding a suitable date.

 I would also note they're meeting in London today so that the point to take
 away from all this is that this is an important relationship to us. We're going
 to have a meeting. We're working to nail down the logistics for that meeting
 and the issue of missile defense is a separate issue. It's one part of a much
 bigger, more complex relationship that — and should be put in its proper
 context. It was a decision that we've — the Canadian Government made. We've
 made clear what our views are, but as I said before, we have a broad and
 complex relationship that's going to go forward.

 QUESTION: In terms of dates, we were talking about mid-April. Those were the
 dates that were being discussed.

 MR. ERELI: Well —

 QUESTION: Can we expect it to be much later?

 MR. ERELI: I'm not going to feed the speculation of dates. If you cover the
 Department of State and scheduling of the Secretary and senior officials, you
 will know that until there's an official announcement made, it's all in the
 realm of the hypothetical and planning. And that's why we don't talk about
 dates until we make an announcement because we don't want to create facts
<!–
D(["mb","  before they\'re actually true, before they\'re actually decided.

 And this is the case here. A lot of people are presuming that there was a date
 set, a lot of people presuming that there was an agreement. Until it\'s
 announced, it\'s not done yet. And that\'s the nature of these kinds of
 discussions. That\'s the nature of these kinds of arrangements.

 QUESTION: Narcotic reports are the exception —

 QUESTION: But you do accept, Adam, that there was some kind of groundwork being
 made for a trip?

 MR. ERELI: Oh, yeah.

 QUESTION: The groundwork shifted because of the —

 MR. ERELI: No, I don\'t accept that. I accept — I don\'t accept that link.

 QUESTION: I don\'t mean because of the missile defense. I mean in terms of
 approximately when the trip would be. You said, I\'m working for, say, a
 mid-April trip, we were working for a late-April.

 MR. ERELI: Frankly, I think this is being over-analyzed. Whenever you\'re
 dealing with two foreign ministers, you\'ve got — who keep as busy schedules as
 these two do, you\'ve got windows that, you\'re — a variety of different windows
 you\'re looking at. And just because, you know, you might be looking at one and
 you don\'t need it and you shift to another, that\'s just the nature of way these
 things work, and then to throw in supposed causes and factors I think is
 over-analyzing the process.

 QUESTION: Can we move to the Lebanon situation?

 MR. ERELI: Sure.

 QUESTION: People are — demonstrators are back on the streets. You know, we
 heard you and the White House loud and clear yesterday. Is there anything you
 want to add, anything further on Hariri\'s assassination, any heightened
 expectations that the Syrians will not only pull their troops out but respect
 Lebanese sovereignty?

 MR. ERELI: Well, the new development of today, obviously, is the joint
“,1]
);
//–> before they're actually true, before they're actually decided.

 And this is the case here. A lot of people are presuming that there was a date
 set, a lot of people presuming that there was an agreement. Until it's
 announced, it's not done yet. And that's the nature of these kinds of
 discussions. That's the nature of these kinds of arrangements.

 QUESTION: Narcotic reports are the exception —

 QUESTION: But you do accept, Adam, that there was some kind of groundwork being
 made for a trip?

 MR. ERELI: Oh, yeah.

 QUESTION: The groundwork shifted because of the —

 MR. ERELI: No, I don't accept that. I accept — I don't accept that link.

 QUESTION: I don't mean because of the missile defense. I mean in terms of
 approximately when the trip would be. You said, I'm working for, say, a
 mid-April trip, we were working for a late-April.

 MR. ERELI: Frankly, I think this is being over-analyzed. Whenever you're
 dealing with two foreign ministers, you've got — who keep as busy schedules as
 these two do, you've got windows that, you're — a variety of different windows
 you're looking at. And just because, you know, you might be looking at one and
 you don't need it and you shift to another, that's just the nature of way these
 things work, and then to throw in supposed causes and factors I think is
 over-analyzing the process.

 QUESTION: Can we move to the Lebanon situation?

 MR. ERELI: Sure.