Rice tries to resuscitate road map

washington | For the third time this year, Condoleezza Rice heads to the Middle East peddling peace — but this time with two views that may be tough to reconcile.

One is that both Israelis and Palestinians need to take steps to ensure the smoothness of next month's Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and parts of the West Bank. The other is that the Bush administration believes the Palestinian Authority principally has failed to follow the "road map" peace process in recent months and may not yet be capable of making peace.

The U.S. secretary of state's mission to the region, tacked on at the last minute to an African tour and coming just a month after her previous foray, assumes added urgency this week with an intensification of violence between Israel and terrorist groups; belated attempts by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to confront the terrorists; and a determined, last-ditch effort by Israeli right-wingers to scuttle the Gaza Strip evacuation.

One U.S. view was evident in the carefully worded language coming out of the State Department this week.

"Both parties need to make a maximum effort to make this withdrawal successful," Rice's spokesman, Sean McCormack, said this week before her departure. "We also urge both parties to exercise restraint and to restore calm."

Yet a report drafted by the State Department, which President Bush will soon submit to Congress, suggests quite a different outlook, one that blames the lack of progress on the Palestinian Authority's failures.

"Despite the P.A.'s public condemnations of violence, the P.A. did not deploy its security resources consistently and effectively against terrorism during the reporting period," which dates to January 2005, the report said. "A general atmosphere of impunity persisted, allowing terrorist groups to act without fearing either legal or political consequences."

The contradiction inherent in Rice's mission is embodied in the report itself: Despite its overwhelmingly negative tone, Bush is submitting it to justify his decision to waive congressional restrictions that would bar the direct disbursement of assistance to the Palestinian Authority. The report accompanies Bush's directive to disburse $50 million directly to the Palestinian Authority.