U.S.: Next Palestinian PM needs tools to take on terror groups

WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration is making clear to Yasser Arafat and others in the Palestinian Authority that it wants the next Palestinian prime minister to have the political and security muscle to crack down on terrorist groups.\nIt is also delivering a message to Israel that it, too, has obligations under a road map for peacemaking. Secretary of State Colin Powell telephoned Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom over the weekend to assess the situation.\nPalestinian parliament speaker Ahmed Qureia said Monday on the West Bank that he would accept the prime minister's job to succeed Mahmoud Abbas only if Washington guaranteed Israeli compliance with the U.S.-backed peace plan, including a halt to military strikes.\nA U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said it was difficult for Israel to meet its commitments under the proposed road map amid another surge of terror.\nPowell, meanwhile, made a flurry of telephone calls Monday, including one to Nabil Shaath, the Palestinian foreign minister, as well as to senior European Union diplomat Javier Solana, French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin and to Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini, whose government holds the presidency of the European Union.\nState Department spokesman Richard Boucher, summarizing the administration's message, said that it was time for the Palestinians to take action against Hamas and other such groups, which he said had "obliterated" chances for peace.\nWhile both Israel and the Palestinians made promises aimed at implementing the peacemaking plan, the first priority at this point is making sure Qureia has the authority and power to move forward by consolidating Palestinian security forces and by being permitted to follow through on commitments.\nAnd yet the administration kept some distance from the power struggle within the Palestinian movement.\n"This is an internal matter among the Palestinian people," White House spokesman Scott McClellan said Monday. "Our focus is on the institution of the prime minister and the power that it has."\nAnd yet, McClellan said "it will be critical that the new cabinet continues to press for reforms and continues to fight terrorism."\nOnly after extremist groups are disrupted and dismantled will the U.S.-backed plan to achieve an independent Palestinian state by 2005 be back on track, President Bush's top foreign policy aides contend.\nThat can happen, they said Sunday, only with a prime minister strengthened with powers and duties denied Mahmoud Abbas, who resigned over the weekend.\n"If there is going to be a process to peace, if the road map is going to continue to unfold -- and I believe it can continue to unfold -- then there has to be a concerted effort against Hamas and other terrorist organizations and terror activity," Powell said Sunday on NBC's "Meet the Press."\nPowell said the Palestinian Legislative Council, which must confirm Arafat's nominee, should "give the new prime minister the political power he needs, the political authority he needs and the resources that he needs to go after Hamas." That has been the most active group recently in carrying out suicide bombings in Israel.\nAbbas ended his stormy tenure Saturday with an impassioned statement denouncing Palestinian detractors undermining him; Israel, for failing, he said, to meet its obligations under the road map; and the United States, for not forcing Israel to comply.\nAbbas had become the Palestinian Authority's first prime minister in late spring, nominated by longtime leader Arafat and confirmed by the legislative council.\nOn ABC's "This Week," Powell said the United States "did everything we could" to support Abbas, but the council, Arafat and other Palestinian leaders "did not give Mr. Abbas the resources that he needed in order to go after Hamas."\n"We have to change that, or else we will not find progress ahead of us," the secretary added.\nBush, Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon gave the road map their blessing at a June 4 meeting in Jordan. After several weeks of relative calm, the situation has returned to tit-for-tat violence involving suicide bombers killing civilians and Israeli airstrikes directed at suspected terrorists.\nWhile putting most of the blame for the breakdown on Palestinian terrorists, Powell also criticized the Israeli bombings even as he called them "self-defense activities."\n"To kill one Hamas leader but to wound nine children or 10 children in the course of this, who will grow up to become Hamas leaders or Hamas killers later -- they have to consider the long-term consequences," Powell said on ABC.\nAbbas is acting as caretaker prime minister.\nAs for Arafat, for decades the symbol of the Palestinian movement and who publicly renounced terror as a weapon in 1988, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice said he "should finally recognize that he should no longer be an obstacle to peace for his people."\n"Yasser Arafat has been an obstacle to peace before; he's an obstacle to peace now," Rice said on "Fox News Sunday."\n"People need to say that a Palestinian state is not going to be born of terror," she said. "A Palestinian state is only going to be born in circumstances in which the Palestinian leadership fights terror. And they need not just the will, which I'm quite certain this Abbas government had, but also the means"