ANATOMY OF RACISM & BIGOTRY

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For All of their Talk..

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YOU MET THE MONKEY, NOW MEET HIS TRAINER

By Anthony Harwood In New York

IF THERE were a monkey in the White House - and many reckon there is - then his trainer would be the world's most powerful person.

In the case of George W Bush, almost everything he knows about foreign policy has been learnt from Condoleezza Rice.

His choice of Rice to replace Colin Powell as Secretary of State means that, if Congress approves the decision, she will be the world's most powerful woman.

Not only is she just as right-wing as Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and the others, she is also an expert in world affairs - which is just as well as Bush is a man who, prior to his first stint as president, had only left America's shores three times.

When he wanted advice, he turned to Rice - his trusted friend.

The President even named a rise on his Texas ranch Balkan Hill, because Rice gave him a quick history lesson on central Europe during a four-mile hike around his property

Her predecessor, Colin Powell, possessed formidable diplo hamstrung by opposition to his policies in Washington - a situation that drove him out.

So the good news is that the Bush Administration will now speak with one voice. The bad news is that the voice will be more aggressive and the sentiments more hardline.

The days of common sense diplomacy, as personified by Powell, are now over.

FORMER National Security Adviser Sandy Berger lifted the lid on Powell's ability to appease world leaders when Bush refused to listen to them.

"Colin was the side door they could get into when they couldn't get in through the front door'," he said.

"But the president set the course - and Colin had a hard hand to play selling policies which weren't popular with allies."

Well, if those policies remain disliked, it will be like-it-or-lump-it time for the next four years.

With Rice in charge at the State Department, not only will everyone be singing from the same page, they'll also be marching to the same strident beat.

So expect fewer calls for co-operation with European allies over North Korea and Iran's nuclear situation. Instead there will be a drive towards sanctions against the rogue states. In the Middle East, it will all be down to the Palestinians, who'll be blamed if it all ends in tears.

Powell's decision to step down after Bush's re-election was not a surprise.

But it is telling that his request to stay on longer, to capitalise on the opportunities for peace in the wake of Yasser Arafat's death, was turned down. There's a new team in town now and it wants to get down to business.

It's no secret that, since the first Gulf War, Dick Cheney never got on with Powell, while after the September 11 attacks Powell thought the vice-president had a bee in his bonnet about the link between al-Qaeda and Iraq.

Unlike other VPs, Cheney demanded to be involved in key foreign policy decisions.

So with Donald Rumsfeld at Defense also whispering in the president's ear, Powell was outnumbered.

Rice was part of the cabal around Bush which masterminded the war on terror. While she was with Cheney and Rumsfeld during war summits at Bush's ranch, Powell was conspicuous by his absence.

But despite being the "baby" of the group - she turned 50 at the weekend - Rice has wielded huge influence through her closeness to the president.

She was Dubya's tutor on foreign policy during the 2000 campaign and bonded with her boss due to their common love of baseball. A single woman, she was not tied down by family and would often be at Camp David to assist during visits by world leaders such as Tony Blair.

Rice was an Alabama cotton farmer's daughter who became an accomplished pianist and ice-skater before graduating from college at 19.

She went on to become an expert in international studies, speaks fluent Russian and was was the National Security Council's Soviet expert during the reign of George Bush Snr.

MORE recently, critics believe she has allowed policies to drift and she has come under fire for not acting on repeated warnings that al-Qaeda was planning a major attack on the US.

Former White House terrorism adviser Richard Clarke said a memo he wrote to her requesting high-level meetings nine months before the 9/11 attacks wasn't acted on until a week before the atrocities.

On at least six other occasions in 2001, Clarke said he issued detailed warnings backed up by intelligence reports. All were ignored.

Clarke even claimed that in one conversation Rice appeared not to have heard of al-Qaeda.

She later testified before the 9/11 commission, set up to investigate the attacks, and her alleged lapses are also likely to be scrutinised when Congress comes to approve her as Secretary of State.

But there is little doubt that the president's appointment will be rubber-stamped and that Rice will, indeed, become the world's most powerful woman.- matic skills but was

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