Bush condemns violence in protests over cartoons

WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration yesterday condemned the violent response to European cartoons mocking Islam and accused Iran and Syria of exploiting the controversy to incite unrest and protests in the Middle East.

''I have no doubt that Iran and Syria have gone out of their way to inflame sentiments and have used this for their own purposes," Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told reporters yesterday. ''The world ought to call them on it."

A few hours earlier, at a White House ceremony with Jordan's King Abdullah, President Bush rejected the violence but not the cartoons that incited bloody protests from Afghanistan to Denmark, where the drawings first appeared. ''We reject violence as a way to express discontent with what may be printed in a free press," Bush said.

Bush and Rice, making their first public remarks on the growing worldwide controversy, highlighted a shift in White House strategy to focusing on the killings and destruction during Muslim protests in several nations -- in contrast to earlier statements that included criticism of the provocative drawings. Administration officials said Bush does not want a debate over free speech to diminish or deflect attention from the US condemnation of the violence.

The protests claimed at least three more lives in Afghanistan yesterday, where demonstrators targeted a US military base in the southern city of Qalat. Police fired into the crowd of protesters, injuring more than a dozen. As world leaders pleaded for an end to the violence, a French newspaper reprinted the cartoons, provoking another round of recriminations and a sharp rebuke from French President Jacques Chirac. ''Anything liable to offend the beliefs of others, particularly religious beliefs, must be avoided," Chirac said.

The Bush strategy puts him at odds with some Democrats and key US allies in the Middle East, including Abdullah, who want a clear condemnation of the drawings. ''With all respect to press freedoms, obviously anything that vilifies the Prophet Mohammed, peace be upon him, or attacks Muslim sensibilities, I believe, needs to be condemned," Abdullah said.

Some Democrats said Bush is missing an opportunity to highlight US respect for Muslims and Islam in not explicitly condemning the publication of the cartoons, especially one portraying Mohammed with a bomb atop his turban. Since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Bush has invested money and resources in trying to improve the US image in Muslim nations.

''These and other inflammatory images deserve our scorn, just as the violence against embassies and military installations are an unacceptable and intolerable form of protest," said Senator John F. Kerry, Democrat of Massachusetts.

''We have done precious little to effectively communicate to the hearts and minds and win that long-term war," said former Democratic congressman Timothy Roemer of Indiana, a member of the Sept. 11 commission. ''This seems to be an opportunity to condemn the cartoons and communicate directly with the Muslim people on a host of issues."

But Democrats appear divided over the issue. House minority leader Nancy Pelosi, a California Democrat, agrees with Bush's position and fears even just the appearance of censoring the press, according to her spokesman, Brendan Daly.

Bush has made a calculated decision to focus on the violence in recent days, according to White House aides. The administration's initial reaction, delivered last Friday by the State Department, was to sharply criticize the drawings. ''Inciting religious or ethnic hatreds in this manner is not acceptable," State Department spokesman Kurtis Cooper said at the time.