Anger as Bush bids to exploit Olympic games

[emad]

Lawrence Donegan in Athens
Monday August 23, 2004
The Guardian

Snip:
President George Bush stood accused of appropriating the Olympic movement for political means last night, amid reports he was planning to visit Athens later this week to watch some sporting events, including a potential gold-medal winning bid by the Iraqi football team.

According to unconfirmed reports in the US, the White House is examining the logistical and security implications of Mr Bush travelling to the Greek capital in time for Saturday's football final. Iraq, whose progress to the semi-finals of the tournament has been one of the games' most captivating stories, will meet Paraguay tomorrow night for a possible place in the finals. The Greek foreign ministry confirmed last night that the US secretary of state, Colin Powell, will be in Athens for the closing ceremony.

But it is the potential presidential visit to the games that will fuel a dispute between the election campaign of Mr Bush and his running mate, Dick Cheney, and the US Olympic Committee over an advert which links Iraq's and Afghanistan's participation in the games with the US administration's "war on terror".

The advert, which has been broadcast in the US for the past week, begins with footage from the 1972 Olympic games in Munich, during which 13 Israeli athletes were killed by terrorists, and continues with a narrator saying: "Freedom is spreading through the world like a sunrise. And this Olympics there will be two more free nations and two less terrorist regimes."

More:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uselections2004/story/0,13918,1288686,00.html

I saw the footage of Poppy and Barb in their luxy 5star berth aboard the Queen Mary 2 at the opening of the games....where will Junior stay I wonder? (Have they got Steerage Class still, maybe where the Police sniffer dogs camp out????....)