Haaretz reported this afternoon that “Bush earlier named Lt. Gen. William Fraser to monitor the Israeli-Palestinian ‘road map’ for peace, the White House said Thursday. Fraser, who has served as assistant to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, will ‘help monitor road map commitments’, White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe said”. This note is in a Haaretz article posted here.
In his press conference with Palestinian President Abbas this morning in Ramallah, Bush told journalists — and the Palestinian President, that “today I introduced the President to the General — three-star Air Force General who will be running this process. We have agreed to a trilateral process and want to help the Israelis and the Palestinians resolve their differences over road map issues”. It is not clear who Bush was referring to — perhaps it was this new appointee, Lt. Gen. Fraser…
Bush also specifically referred, in his press conference, to Lt. General William Dayton — who’s been here for a while (mostly in the U.S. embassy in Tel Aviv, but still in the region), so Abbas already knows him. Bush said that “General Dayton is spending a lot of time trying to help the President and the Prime Minister develop security forces that are effective”.
Al-Jazeera English channel’s Mike Hanna, in Gaza, commented after the press conference that, prior to the Hamas rout of Fatah security forces in Gaza in mid-May, that “there were Palestinian forces trained by the Americans … and they did operate in Gaza — but with very little success”.
But Bush failed to mention the man who was announced, on 27 November, as the Annapolis Arbiter – Gen. Jim Jones (of the Marines)…who has hardly been seen or heard from since.
