LIANE HANSEN, host:
From NPR News, this is WEEKEND EDITION. I'm Liane Hansen. President Bush returned this morning from his overseas trip to Afghanistan, India and Pakistan. NPR's Don Gonyea traveled with the President. He joins us now. Hi, Don. How was the flight?
DON GONYEA reporting:
Long. Long flight from Islamabad. We left about 11:00 o'clock local time PM from Islamabad yesterday, and the President left Pakistan the same way he arrived, Air Force One, dark, all the shades drawn, no lights on the runway, up and out, trying to be as invisible as possible, as Air Force One can be.
HANSEN: Let's talk about some of the results of the trip. India got a nuclear pact with the United States. Pakistan got a handshake. Was President Musharraf satisfied with that?
GONYEA: I think he was not satisfied with that, but he probably recognized that while he had to make the point, India got a deal on the nuclear plants and nuclear technology and all that, we should get the same. We're their neighbors, we're their rivals. But the President very bluntly in a press conference yesterday, and I don't want to say it was kind of a chilly press conference, because there were lots of words of support back and forth, but the President was blunt in saying Pakistan is not India. India has no history of being involved in nuclear proliferation. Pakistan does. That makes a world of difference. So no nuclear deal for Pakistan.
HANSEN: So was the trip successful in the administration's estimate?
GONYEA: The administration certainly sees it as successful and it was probably a more newsworthy trip than a lot of us might have anticipated going in. It started out with that, I won't say surprise, because the White House was planning it for eight weeks, but an unexpected visit to Afghanistan. The President made his first stop there, visited the troops, got in and out, then the focus in New Delhi, in India, was on the nuclear deal that was worked out. It has been many months in coming. It still needs to be approved by the Congress and there are many there who have serious questions. Does this carve out a special exemption for India, rewarding them even though have not signed the Nuclear Proliferation Treaty? So that debate is still ahead in Congress.
But then he also, the President, went to Pakistan and really was able to make a statement by going there because mid-week you had that bombing in Karachi. There was talk, well, will the President cancel his trip up to Islamabad 700 miles to the north and they never considered canceling it at all. But it added some drama.
HANSEN: How was the President received by the general populous in each country?
GONYEA: It's worth saying that he had no contact really with the general populous in either country. Security being what it is, he just couldn't go there and give the kind of open-air speech like he has in very friendly countries, like he's done in Eastern Europe on a number of occasions. And we did see protests in each country and some especially large ones in Pakistan, where for weeks they were protesting the publication of the Muhammad cartoons, they just kind of switched and began protesting President Bush's visit.
HANSEN: Were you at the President's cricket match?
GONYEA: I was not physically at the cricket match. But it was one of those things and there was some critics who say, gee, the President found time to play cricket but not to visit the Taj Mahal. But it was one of those photo ops that he clearly seemed to enjoy. He got the bat, he got the ball, which is kind of the equivalent of pitching, and at the end of it he handed signed Presidential seal baseballs to all the boys and young Pakistani men he had been playing with that day.
HANSEN: NPR's Don Gonyea. Thanks a lot, Don.
GONYEA: My pleasure.
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