US diplomats sometimes go off-message

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http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080201/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/straying_diplomats_2

By MATTHEW LEE, Associated Press Writer 9 minutes ago

WASHINGTON - More and more, top government diplomats are straying from official Bush foreign policy as the administration wanes, leaving Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice struggling to keep them in check.


Twice just this week, Rice and her aides had to rebuke, disavow or otherwise try to explain away public words or actions by three top officials on delicate affairs ranging from North Korea and Iran to the violence in Kenya.

The trouble began on Jan. 17, when Jay Lefkowitz, the special U.S. envoy for human rights in North Korea, delivered a speech at the conservative American Enterprise Institute think-tank in which he trashed the six-nation talks aimed at persuading the North Koreans to give up their nuclear weapons program.

Then the U.S. ambassador to the U.N., Zalmay Khalilzad, violated Washington's long-standing policy on contact with officials from the Islamic government of Iran by showing up on a stage in Switzerland with the Iranian foreign minister. And the top U.S. envoy for Africa used the emotionally and politically charged phrase "ethnic cleansing" to describe the postelection violence in Kenya.

Whether or not any of those incidents will have lasting implications, the gaffes and lapses on sensitive diplomatic matters have been embarrassing for an administration that attaches great importance to being "on message."