Seeking To Avoid More Instability In Yemen, Obama Administration Claims No Post-Saleh Planning

[Purveyor]

Associated Press

WASHINGTON - The Obama administration sought Wednesday to avoid undermining an embattled ally in Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh, offering no prediction whether Saleh could ride out spirited street protests to remain in power and refusing to acknowledge any contingency plans in case he is removed.

The caution from top officials such as Defence Secretary Robert Gates and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton represented a careful balancing act for the administration. The U.S. does not want to add pressure on Saleh, who has proven himself a key partner in the fight against al-Qaida, even as American officials have become increasingly perturbed by the harshness of his government's crackdown on peaceful protesters.

In Cairo for meetings, Gates said that while things are unsettled in Yemen, it was too early to know the outcome. He stressed that the United States had a good relationship with Saleh, whose offer to step down at year-end after more than three decades in power has been rejected by the opposition. And, Gates said, the administration had not formulated an approach to the country for when the aged president leaves office.

That message was echoed in Washington by Clinton, however unlikely it seemed that the U.S. government had conducted no planning for how it might react to Saleh's departure from Yemen, a main counterterrorism battleground.

MORE...

http://www.theguardian.pe.ca/Canada---World/Society/2011-03-23/article-2360325/Seeking-to-avoid-more-instability-in-Yemen,-Obama-administration-claims-no-post-Saleh-planning/1