FORT IRWIN (California), April 4: The White House on Wednesday sharply condemned US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's trip to Syria, saying the road to Damascus was “lined with the victims” of Syrian-backed extremists.

Vice President Dick Cheney said in a radio interview that the visit undermined US-led efforts to isolate Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and instead rewarded his “bad behaviour” in Lebanon, Iraq and elsewhere.

“He's been isolated and cut off because of his bad behaviour. And the unfortunate thing about the Speaker's visit is it sort of breaks down that barrier,” Cheney told ABC radio.

“It means without him having done any of those things he should do in order to be acceptable, if you will, from an international standpoint, he gets a visit from a high-ranking American anyway. In other words, his bad behaviour is being rewarded,” the vice-president said.

Pelosi, the top Democrat in the US House of Representatives and the most senior US official to visit Syria in years, has shrugged off such criticisms and pointed out that some of US President George W. Bush's Republican allies met Assad days ago without drawing a public White House rebuke.

Bush aides say they objected privately to those visits -- but the White House on Wednesday fiercely assailed Pelosi's trip in public, playing off her reported comment that the road to Middle East peace goes through Damascus.

“She, earlier today, said that the road to Damascus is a road to peace.

Unfortunately, that road is lined with the victims of Hamas and Hezbollah, and the victims of terrorists who cross from Syria into Iraq,” said national security council spokesman Gordon Johndroe.

“It's lined with the victims in Lebanon, who are trying to fight for democracy there. It's lined with human rights activists trying for freedom and democracy in Syria,” he said. “We don't think these meetings are productive.” Still, Johndroe told reporters, “we'll listen to what she has to say after she returns from the Middle East.” Pelosi has said her trip was inspired by the bipartisan Iraq Study Group, which concluded late last year in a report to Bush that directly engaging Syria and Iran was critical to any effort to quell deadly violence in Iraq.

She said she also raised with Assad and other top Syrian officials her “concern” about alleged support for militant groups Hamas and Hezbollah and infiltrations into Iraq.

“The United States has been working in multilateral forums with countries in the region and countries in Europe, to send a message to the Syrians that they need to change their behavior,” said Johndroe.

“And it's unfortunate that she took this unilateral trip that we only see as counterproductive,” he said aboard Air Force One as Bush headed here to meet US soldiers.

Pelosi's voting record suggests no particular fondness for the government in Damascus: She co-sponsored and voted in favour of the “Syria Accountability and Lebanese Sovereignty Restoration Act of 2003” which Bush signed into law and later relied on to impose broad sanctions on Damascus.—AFP