November 17, 2001	Saturday	Ramazan 1, 1422

CRAWFORD: A hall full of Texan school children on Thursday did what a thousand journalists never could and got the presidents of Russia and the United States to admit that their three-day summit had failed in what the Americans considered its most important purpose: a deal on missile defence.

The best peppered beef tenderloin, fried catfish and bluebell vanilla ice cream that President Bush could rustle up for dinner failed to persuade President Putin to give way and allow the US to dump the 1972 ABM treaty. Putin left without agreeing anything substantive that might stand as a Crawford Accord.

Nonetheless, the men will meet again in Russia next year and they continued to protest undying friendship to an extent that on the American side became somewhat cloying. “We don’t agree on every issue,” Bush said to the children. “But you don’t agree with your mother on every issue. You still love her, don’t you? I still like and respect him as a person.”

His national security adviser Condoleezza Rice later confirmed the continuing stalemate: “One way or another, the US is going to have to get out of the commitments of the ABM treaty,” she said.

Putin, in return, showered the president with compliments about the dinner, Mrs Bush, the “warm and homely” ranch, Texas (“the most important state in the US”) and Americans in general. “I feel the time was not wasted. Our objective is a common one.

“We share President Bush’s concerns that we must think about future threats, and there is common ground for future discussions. What we differ on are the ways and means that are suitable for reaching the same objective.”

This appears to mean that Putin, under pressure from hardliners back home, intends to use the strong position he has built up with the Americans since September 11 to extract a very good deal indeed before he lets the US scrap the treaty.

Perhaps above anything else, the Russians want a new relationship with Nato, leading perhaps to eventual membership, that will end their twitchiness about the organisation’s spread into the old eastern bloc, and, in the case of the Baltic republics, the former Soviet Union itself.

Lord Robertson, the Nato secretary general, is flying to Moscow for talks next week, and a senior Russian source supports the view that this could be very significant: “We know that Nato are watching things here very closely and we believe what happens next week could be the second half of this summit.”

The two presidents went to the gymnasium of Crawford high school, eight miles from the Bush ranch, to talk about their friendship and what this has meant to the world.

Bush, in his bomber jacket, looked as though he owned the area, or at least 1,600 acres of it. Putin was wearing an open-neck black shirt under a dark suit, as though no one had mentioned the informal code until late in the day.

He never looked comfortable, though the hints of sly humour under his wintry exterior went down a treat. He even made the audience raise their hands if they wanted their president to visit Russia. In keeping with the mood of the times, he got unanimity.

“In the old days, if America was under attack, Russia would have put their troops on alert,” Bush said. “We’d have put ours on higher alert and all of a sudden you’d have had two conflicts instead of one. The first call I received from an overseas leader was from the Russian leader. He said he knew what we were up against and we stand with you.”

Journalists, fearful of being slapped down or alienating important people, are usually wary of asking difficult but pertinent questions. Teenagers have no such inhibitions, and when Sheldon Law from the school debating team asked him about missile defence, Mr Bush first asked if he was a journalist, then opted for something close to frankness.

But Putin was determined not to disappoint Crawford completely. “Whatever final solution is found, it will not threaten the interests of both our countries and the world,” he insisted. “We shall continue our discussions.” And the youth of Texas applauded. —Dawn/The Guardian News Service.