Bush rebuffs Israeli request to cut off Arafat

WASHINGTON -- President Bush insisted Thursday that Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat "must do everything in his power to fight terror." But Bush rebuffed a request by Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon that the United States sever ties with Arafat.

"Mr. Arafat has heard my message. I can't be any more clear about it," Bush said after a White House meeting with Sharon.

Bush said he was "at first surprised, then extremely disappointed" of Palestinian efforts to smuggle into the region 50 tons of Iranian weapons by ship.

For his part, Sharon accused Arafat of waging "a strategy of terror."

"I personally, myself and my government, regard Arafat as an obstacle to peace," the Israeli leader said. Sharon called for pressure on Arafat to be increased.

Sharon, who has imposed virtual house arrest on Arafat on the West Bank, wanted Bush to cut more than a decade of U.S. contact that followed the Palestinian leader's public repudiation of terrorism.

But that is a door the Bush administration does not want to shut -- at least for now -- even as it applies heavy pressure on Arafat to curb Palestinian attacks on Israel, to make more arrests and to take responsibility for trying to smuggle in the Iranian rockets, mortar and explosives.

"I made our government's position about as clear as I could," Bush said. "I haven't changed my position."

Fourth meeting

Even as Sharon was visiting -- it was his fourth meeting with Bush in a year -- Israel struck a Palestinian government complex in the West Bank with missiles twice. The attack was in retaliation for an Islamic militant's assault on a Jewish settlement the day before that killed three Israelis.

Arafat "must do everything in his power to reduce terrorist attacks on Israel," Bush said. "At one point in time (Arafat) indicated to us he was going to do so and all of a sudden a ship loaded with explosives showed up that most of the world believes he was involved with."

Bush and Sharon took questions from reporters in the Oval Office after a meeting that lasted about an hour.

The president noted that he was dispatching Vice President Dick Cheney on a tour of the Middle East. Cheney will visit Israel and eight Arab countries in mid-March.

He said one of Cheney's missions would be to look leaders of the region "in the eye and letting them know that when we say we're going to fight terror, we mean it."