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Source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A7581-2003Apr21.html
New Critique of State Dept on Road Map and Syria
(Washington Post) - Glenn Kessler Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.), a member of a Pentagon advisory committee who is close to Defense Secretary Rumsfeld, will offer a wide-ranging critique of State Department policy in a speech Tuesday at the American Enterprise Institute. Gingrich said he plans to fault the State Department for advocating a "road map" for peace in the Middle East crafted with the EU, Russia, and the UN. Working with those entities, he said, is "intellectually a formula for denial of anything we've learned over the past six months." Gingrich said the "final straw" that caused him to speak out was Powell's announcement that he planned to visit Syria. "Powell allowed himself to be convinced to go to Damascus" by the department's Near East Bureau, which Gingrich said "appeases dictators and tries to be nice to corrupt regimes."