Most media attention surrounding Ron Suskind's explosive account of the Bush White House, The Price of Loyalty, has focused on former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill's revelations that the Bush team had designs for regime change in Iraq long in advance of September 11, as well as his general description of an administration governed solely by political impulses and a president both uninterested in and seemingly incapable of the hard work of "thinking things through."

Perhaps the most remarkable part of Suskind's account, however, refers not to internal White House politics but to Secretary O'Neill's extraordinary tour of Africa in May 2002. Accompanied by international rock star Bono, O'Neill spent over a week touring villages with no safe water, AIDS hospitals with woefully inadequate care, and mingling both with national leaders and ordinary Africans.

More remarkably still, this conservative former CEO returned from his trip determined that the United States should do something substantial and concrete to assist Africans, particularly in the areas of clean water and AIDS. O'Neill's problem-solving instincts had been set in motion by what he saw on his tour, and he became convinced that with concerted American assistance, it might be possible to make dramatic improvements in providing clean well water and basic care to mothers with AIDS in a short period of time, with a relatively small amount of money.

Unfortunately, upon returning to Washington, O'Neill failed to stimulate much interest in the Bush White House in following through on the hopes raised on the African tour. Top Bush advisors like Condoleezza Rice and Colin Powell, while not wholly dismissive, were concerned that O'Neill had gone "off message" and worried about the geopolitical implications of an initiative in Africa.

Bush himself remained largely unmoved by a personal, face-to-face pitch from O'Neill to at least fund a $25 million demonstration project to provide clean water in Ghana–and also made it clear that he was not amused by the publicity O'Neill had received on his trip. Bush's inner core of advisors, led by Dick Cheney, had no use for the initiative, either. Eventually, the idea died.

This is not simply another story of the powerful and comfortable turning a deaf ear to the cries of the sick and poor, or a story of half-hearted excuses being used to rationalize inaction. The rejection of O'Neill's initiative–paralleled by a headlong rush into military confrontation with Iraq–also represented a major strategic decision by the Bush White House.

O'Neill recognized that force alone will never suffice to eliminate the sources of antagonism towards the United States and the possibility of anti-American terrorism. "We needed a nonmilitary side to our foreign policy, where the U.S. could start treating much of the beleaguered developing world–the source of so many of the threats to our security–in a way that showed we valued and respected them. We needed to do some things that showed measurable good–that the U.S. could be a force for good in people's lives."

Bush simply passed on the opportunity to demonstrate that America actually cares about the well-being of other nations and is not solely motivated by self-interest. Instead, he has emphasized that America now calls the shots on issues of war and peace, and that international collaboration is acceptable only so long as collaborators play by Bush's rules.

Indeed, outside observers of this Administration will likely be surprised to learn that a high-ranking cabinet official like O'Neill was even raising such basic questions as "How do we better serve the mutual interest of developed and developing countries in promoting global peace, stability, and prosperity?"

In the post 9-11 world, America will not be able to feel completely secure so long as much of the rest of the world regards the United States as simply an arrogant bully, not a friend willing to use its resources and know-how to help solve other nations' problems.

Paul O'Neill understood that, and it is a shame that his ideas for acting on that resolve fell on deaf ears. Perhaps a different administration in Washington will give O'Neill a chance to make good his pledges to bring clean water to more of Africa and end his distinguished public service on a happier note–starting in 2005.

Thad Williamson is a doctoral student in the Department of Government at Harvard University and an editorial board member of Dollars and Sense: The Magazine of Economic Justice. He is co-author (with Gar Alperovitz and David Imbroscio) of 'Making a Place for Community: Local Democracy in a Global Era' (Routledge Press, 2002). He can be reached at thwilliamson@earthlink.net

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