February 16, 2011
By Staff Reporter
The president also took the opportunity to publicly announce his intention to visit Ireland at the end of June for an EU/U.S. summit.
After all the lighthearted smiles and wearing of the green last Wednesday, harsh sentiments were expressed by the administration after most of the celebrants had left the capital.
On BBC Ulster’s “Inside Politics” program broadcast last Saturday, U.S. Special Envoy to Northern Ireland Dr. Mitchell Reiss accused Sinn Fein of promoting lies and deceptions on the policing issue.
Reiss, whose nomination to be special envoy to Northern Ireland with the rank of ambassador was submitted this week to the Senate for approval, plans to travel to Belfast in late April.
Sinn Fein’s chief negotiator, Martin McGuinness, took on a more prominent role in the Washington events this year than Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams.
Just as Reiss, unionist politicians and President George W. Bush personally hammered away at the policing issue during all of their holiday appearances, McGuinness’s inevitable retort was: what about the Cory report?
The British government has said the report, which includes cases of alleged collusion between loyalist paramilitary groups and the British military and Northern Ireland police, will be published by the end of this month.
McGuinness added he was baffled by Reiss’s criticisms, which the envoy didn’t make when the two met privately.
Last Thursday, Reiss also met representatives of the Democratic Unionist Party and Ulster Unionist Party.
Democratic Unionist MP Nigel Dodds said after the meeting that they pressed for further acts of decommissioning. “We have made it very clear that it’s an absolute necessity for Sinn Fein-IRA to deliver in terms of commitment to exclusively peaceful and democratic means,” he said.
There was no clarification needed of the president’s overall theme.
In comments at the White House reception on the morning of St. Patrick’s Day and at the subsequent Speaker’s Luncheon on Capitol Hill, President Bush praised the work of Mary McCrea of Sion Mills, who had her car destroyed and her son threatened because of her participation in the Strabane District Policing Partnership.
President Bush and First Lady Laura Bush received the traditional Waterford bowl of shamrock from the Taoiseach in the Roosevelt Room of the White House.
The president delivered prepared remarks that noted the strong ties between Ireland and the U.S. and said the two countries stood side by side in the effort to bring a lasting peace “free of terror and intimidation” to Northern Ireland.
“I call for a permanent end to all political violence,” the president said. “There’s no place for paramilitaries in a democratic society.”
Sen. Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts and Connecticut’s Sen. Chris Dodd echoed the need for paramilitaries to lay down their weapons, but both men also said equal attention should be given to the Cory report findings.
Both Ahern and the president noted the loss of life from the Madrid train bombings. Bush praised Ireland’s assistance for the American “war against terror.”
As if to underscore that unity, Ireland’s U.S. ambassador, Noel Fahey, attended a speech at the White House by President Bush to mark the one-year anniversary of the war in Iraq. Bush praised those countries that had sent representatives to the speech.
The president also stuck to a single joke about the Irish overindulging in drink during his multiple St Patrick’s Day appearances.
“In some places, Americans get a little too happy,” he joked at the shamrock ceremony. He repeated the same joke at the small morning St. Patrick’s reception held without any media coverage and during remarks made off camera at the Speaker’s Luncheon later in the day.
Ahern gave a retort to the president’s comment during a reception at the Irish embassy in the evening.
“As the president said, sometimes we overcelebrate St. Patrick’s Day, but really we’re just not waiting for Easter and Christmas to come around” to have good time, said Ahern.
And besides, the taoiseach added, there are a lot of people who have to celebrate the day: “We have the biggest population of any European country — we’re just not all in the same place at the same time.”