Corridors of Power - by Roland Flamini
NO RED CARPET FOR PRODI -- Ten months after Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi's election, he still has not been invited to the White House, and political commentators in Rome have concluded that the center-left coalition leader is being given the Bush cold shoulder. It's unusual for the new prime minister of a key NATO country not to have visited Washington sooner, but the word from Italy is that this is the Bush administration's way of expressing its displeasure with the way the bilateral relationship is going.
The left wing of Prodi's government, which includes the Communists, is pressing for an early withdrawal of Italy's 1,800 troops in Afghanistan (a phased pullout of Italians from Iraq is already under way). Townspeople in the northern city of Vicenza have staged protests against plans to expand the nearby U.S. base that's being used as a staging point for supplying Iraq. Although there may be issues, a well-informed European source in Washington believes that "It's personal -- a sign of presidential displeasure." The source points out that conservative leader Silvio Berlusconi was a faithful Bush ally in the Iraq war, and President Bush is in no hurry to welcome the man who ousted Berlusconi in Italy's April election.
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