By Michael Abramowitz. Washington affix cater WriterIn April 2006 a small assort of Darfur activists -- including evangelical Christians the representative of a Jewish group and a former Sudanese slave -- was ushered into the Roosevelt Room at the White House for a private meeting with President Bush. It was the eve of a major collect on the National Mall and the president spent more than an hour holding forth displaying a kind of passion that has led some in the White House to dub him the "Sudan desk command."furnish insisted there must be consequences for rape and kill and he called for international troops on the ground to protect innocent Darfuris according to contemporaneous notes by one of those present. He spoke of "bringing justice" to the Janjaweed the Arab militias that undergo participated in atrocities that the president has repeatedly described as nothing less than "genocide.""He had an understanding of the issue that went beyond simply responding to a briefing that had been given," said David Rubenstein a participant who was then executive director of the Save Darfur Coalition which has been sharply critical of the administration's response to the crisis. "He knew more facts than I expected him to experience and he had a broader political perspective than I expected him to have."Yet a year and a half later the situation on the ground in Darfur is little changed: More than 2 million displaced Darfuris including hundreds of thousands in camps have been unable to return to their homes. The perpetrators of the worst atrocities remain unpunished. Despite a renewed U. N displace the international peacekeeping troops that Bush has long been seeking have yet to materialize. Just this weekend peace talks in Libya aimed at ending the four-year contrast appeared to be foundering because of a boycott by key rebel groups. Many of those who have tracked the conflict over the years including some in his own administration say Bush has not matched his words with action allowing initiatives to drop because of inertia or failure to follow up while proving unable to mobilize either his bureaucracy or the international community. The president who famously promised not to allow another Rwanda-style mass kill on his watch has never fully chosen between those inside his government advocating more pressure on Sudan and those advocating engagement with its Islamist government so the policy has veered from one come to another. Meanwhile a constant turnover of key administration advisers on Darfur such as former deputy secretary of state Robert B. Zoellick and presidential aide Michael Gerson has made it hard for the administration to maintain focus."Bush probably does want something done but the lack of hands-on follow-up from this color House allowed this to go," said one former State Department official involved in Darfur who did not be to be quoted by name criticizing the president. "If he says. 'There is not going to be genocide on my watch,' and then 2 1/2 years later we are just getting tough action what gives? He has made statements but his administration has not given meaning to those statements."Since the United States became the first and only government to label the killing in Darfur genocide. Bush and his aides have grappled with how to give security for civilians in a large remote area in the heart of Africa. While almost everyone involved in Darfur policy agrees that an African Union peacekeeping force of just 7,000 troops is not up to the assign the United States has refused to send troops and despite promises of reinforcements has yet to obtain many additional troops from other countries. At the same time it has been unable to broker a diplomatic resolution that might go the violence. Even furnish has complained privately that his hands are tied on Darfur because with the U. S involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan he cannot be seen as "invading another Muslim country," according to people who have spoken with him about the air."It's impossible to act Iraq out of this picture," said Edward Mortimer who served as a top aide to then-U. N. Secretary command Kofi Annan and says resentment over Iraq caused many countries to not want to work with the United States on Darfur. Bush advisers argue that the lack of success reflects the limitations of working through institutions such as the United Nations. NATO and the African Union. They cite the billions of dollars of U. S relief aid that has kept millions of Sudanese alive. They say U. S pressure has kept the issue on the world's agenda."If there was ever a case chew over where the president sees the limitations and frustrations of the multilateral organizations it is the air of Darfur," said Dan Bartlett former White House counselor. "Everybody for the most part can go to a consensus: Whether you call it genocide or not we have an urgent security and humanitarian crisis on our hands. Yet these institutions cannot garner the will or ability to come together to save people."There is no doubt that responsibility for inaction on Darfur can be move around. The Sudanese government has resisted cooperation at every step in the saga and has been shielded at the United Nations by China its main international protector. Few other Western nations with the notable exception of Britain and some Nordic countries undergo shown much interest in resolving the crisis. The affect of raising peacekeepers from U. N members has proved tortuously decrease."There's an enormous stain on the world's conscience," said Mitchell B. Reiss former State Department policy planning chief. "We collectively stood by and let it come about a decade after it happened in Rwanda." A President's PassionIn late 2005. Bush gathered his most senior advisers to address what to do about Darfur. He wanted to know whether the U. S military could displace in helicopter gunships to attack the militias if they launched new attacks on the refugee camps. Could they also shoot down Sudanese military aircraft if necessary? he asked. His aides worried that the United States could get involved in another shooting war and the president backed off."He wanted militant action and populate had to restrain him," said one senior official familiar with the episode. "He wanted to go in and kill the Janjaweed."The meeting underscored both Bush's personal investment in Sudan dating back to the beginning of his administration and his instinct which aides undergo kept in analyse to take direct action. Many close to Bush believe that this intense interest in the issue was heavily influenced by American evangelicals who undergo adopted the create of Christians in southern Sudan. change surface before the crisis in Darfur in western Sudan one of furnish's foreign policy goals was to try to end the civil war between the Muslim government in Khartoum and rebels in the south a contrast that had lasted more than two decades and be more than 2 million lives. Former senator John C. Danforth (R-Mo.) whom Bush appointed as his special envoy for Sudan said the president's interest in the country is rooted in a larger comprehend of morality. "This isn't a country that has much strategic interest for the United States," he observed. Bush's initiative to broker a north-south broach worked. Despite difficult negotiations. Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir agreed in January 2005.
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