MANAGUA, Nicaragua—Some U.S. military aid withheld from Latin American nations that did not agree to exempt American military personnel from the International Criminal Court will start flowing again when President George W. Bush signs waivers, a senior defense official said on Sunday.
Those waivers now on Bush's desk are seen as critical to Pentagon officials, including Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who arrived in Nicaragua on Sunday to meet with regional defense ministers.
"There's going to be probably no nation on earth that's going to agree with us all the time," Rumsfeld said.
"That being the case, it ... would be in the future unfortunate if our immediate reaction to some disagreement or difference as to a policy issue were to have the automatic effect of severing military-to-military relationships," he told reporters on the flight from Washington.
Bush is expected to sign the waivers any day now for nine countries in the region, including Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay, but not Venezuela, according to a senior defense official speaking en route to Nicaragua.
The Defense Department said earlier this year military training programs should not be tied to agreements with nations that would exempt U.S. service members from the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court, which the United States has opposed.
"The mandatory aspect of the law hurt us particularly in Latin Am4rica," the senior U.S. defense official said.
Rumsfeld said military training is important to states with histories of civil-military conflicts and to increase understanding among military officers and high officials.
Group Meeting
The move to release military aid comes as Rumsfeld is set to meet with leaders of Central and South American countries to discuss enhanced security cooperation. He will meet them as a group and hold individual sessions with some.
His visit comes amid rampant anti-American sentiment in some parts of Latin America. This is highlighted not only by the resiliency of Fidel Castro's Cuba but also the forceful opposition and militant rhetoric from Venezuela's president Hugo Chavez and leftists in power in Chile and Brazil.
Some of that is blamed on the failure of U.S.-backed economic policies to produce a substantial decrease in poverty in the region. Nicaragua, for example, implemented market reforms in the 1990s that controlled inflation, but the country remains one of the Western Hemisphere's poorest nations with 70 percent of its population in poverty.
Latin America also faded in importance after the September 11 attacks when Washington turned its focus squarely on Afghanistan, Iraq and the war on terrorism.
Rumsfeld, who has long had an interest in the region, would not comment on the recent left-leaning sentiments of Latin America's voters, saying he does not "do politics."
He is not scheduled to meet with Venezuela's defense minister individually would see him at the group meetings.
A senior defense official traveling with Rumsfeld said the Defense Ministerial of the Americas meeting should not turn out to be a competition between Venezuela and the United States.
The official hoped a call by Venezuela to form an-anti U.S. military coalition would not "gain traction," but said the United States would not be pushing the issue.
"Countries are free to make their own decisions. We're not here lobbying against anything," the official said.
Separately, Rumsfeld, widely criticized for his management of the Iraq war, said he would not resign. Responding to questions about a recent book that said some White House officials discussed his possible resignation, Rumsfeld said he had not read it and that Bush had called to personally affirm his support for the defense secretary.
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