Cheney to visit Europe
Meeting with pope, troops on tap
By John King
CNN Washington Bureau
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Vice President Dick Cheney's upcoming trip to Europe is part of an "ongoing dialogue" with U.S. allies, according to one aide.
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WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Vice President Dick Cheney will travel to Switzerland and Rome in the coming days to discuss developments in the war on terrorism and the impact of the U.S. economic rebound on the global economy.
He will also thank personnel who have participated in the war in Iraq, aides said.
Cheney, who is to depart for the trip late Thursday, will meet with Pope John Paul II and take time on just his second overseas trip of the administration to mark the 60th anniversary of the World War II allied landing at the seaside Italian village of Nettuno.
The vice president is scheduled to deliver a speech Saturday at the annual World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, focusing on the war on terrorism, efforts to combat the spread of weapons of mass destruction and the global impact of the "U.S. economy taking off," according to a senior administration official involved in the trip.
This official said the speech is part of an "ongoing dialogue" with U.S. allies. While acknowledging "some differences" remain between the United States and some traditional allies in Europe, this official said, "My impression is the mood has improved somewhat."
Among the issues likely to be discussed -- and still the source of some tension -- are efforts to reduce Iraq's international debt and the question of whether prime U.S. reconstruction contracts in Iraq would be opened to bidding from war opponents France, Russia and Germany.
This official, while discussing the trip and efforts to reduce tensions that flared up over Iraq, noted that the prime minister of Turkey and the chancellor of Germany are due to visit the White House over the next month.
Germany was a staunch opponent of the war, so much so that at one point several senior U.S. officials openly called the relationship "poisoned." And there were tensions with Turkey over the inability to get parliamentary approval for U.S. forces to use Turkish bases to launch offensive military operations into northern Iraq.
In Rome, Cheney will meet with Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and President Carlo Ciampi as part of his effort to thank Italy for its support in Iraq, including the postwar deployment of military and police personnel. The vice president also will deliver a speech in Rome to members business, political and civic leaders.
Cheney, who served as defense secretary in the administration of the first President Bush, is a military history buff and aides said he is eager to visit Nettuno to get a briefing on the January 1944 allied landing there and at nearby Anzio, a key point in World War II. He will visit grave sites and take part in a wreath-laying ceremony.
The meeting with the pope will be Tuesday, and before heading back to the United States the vice president will visit U.S. troops at bases in Aviano and Vicenza. The troops to be visited include the 173rd Airborne Division, based at Vicenza, which launched troops by parachute into northern Iraq -- an operation designed in part to compensate for the failure to win agreement to use bases in Turkey.
The only previous overseas trip Cheney has taken as vice president was in March 2002, when he traveled to London and then across the Middle East in the early stages of the administration's efforts to build international pressure on Iraq.
