Laura Bush begins Mideast trip

AMMAN, Jordan -- Laura Bush said yesterday that America's image abroad has been damaged badly by the prisoner-abuse scandal in Iraq and allegations that US interrogators desecrated the Koran at Guantanamo Bay, a report Newsweek has retracted.

''We've had terrible happenings that really, really hurt our image of the United States," the president's wife said. ''People in the United States are sick about it. They're very sorry that that's the image that people in the Arab world got of the United States."

She spoke as she flew to the Middle East to promote democracy, human rights, and free elections in the region.

Bush arrived in Amman late yesterday afternoon and had a low-key greeting by Jordan's tourism and antiquities minister and two members of the royal Jordanian guard. Soldiers dressed in camouflage stood guard along her 25-minute motorcade route into the city.

She is scheduled to make her first public appearance today at the World Economic Forum near the Dead Sea in Jordan.

During a five-day diplomatic mission that will take her from Jordan and Israel's Western Wall to the pyramids of Egypt, Bush said she will emphasize the role of women and education in creating free, functioning democracies around the world. She also will work to mend America's tattered image, Bush said.

She visits the Middle East at a time of uncertain change in the Arab world that is underscoring the promise and challenges of trying to spread democracy in a region largely ruled by monarchs and dictators.

At the World Economic Forum, she will deliver a speech about democratic progress and expanded rights for women in Kuwait and in Afghanistan, where recent riots and killings have amplified the dangers and instability that persist.

Bush will be making her first trip as the president's wife to Israel, where peace talks and a fragile truce with the Palestinians are threatened by decades of mistrust. She will have tea with the wife of President Moshe Katsav of Israel, host a roundtable discussion with Palestinian women in Jericho, and tour the Church of the Resurrection in Abu Gosh. ''I really, truly believe that we are as close as we have ever been to peace," she said.

Bush will conclude her visit with a two-day stop in Egypt, where President Hosni Mubarak is promising free elections but imposing tight restrictions on who can run for office. Critics charge the White House should do more to defend opposition groups and pressure Mubarak to open the elections and allow international monitors.

Bush, who plans to spend a lot of time with Susan Mubarak, the wife of Egypt's president, said the White House is committed to strong monitors and open elections. ''President Mubarak is very popular in Egypt, he's very well liked, and it's very important for him, as well as for the country, as well as an example for the rest of the countries in the broader Middle East, to show that Egypt can have free and fair elections," Bush said.

Bush's main mission is to help repair the US image in Arab nations, which specialists say remains damaged not only by the prison scandal and recent flap over the Newsweek article, but also by hostilities over the Iraq war and perceptions of an imperialist and religiously motivated United States trying to impose its views on the world.

In a separate display of her growing independent voice, Bush also said yesterday that her husband should have been interrupted last week to be told about a small-plane infringement on restricted airspace that sent officials scurrying for cover. President Bush was not informed until he finished a bicycle ride in suburban Maryland, about 50 minutes after the evacuation began.

Material from the Associated Press was included in this report.