President urges Congress to renew AIDS program

DAR ES SALAAM, Tanzania (AP) — President Bush rejected proposed Democratic changes to his prized AIDS relief program, issuing a challenge Sunday to Congress to “stop the squabbling” and renew it as is. Tanzanian leader Jakaya Kikwete made an impassioned appeal for the same thing, saying thousands in his country would orphan their children if U.S. lawmakers do not act.

There is broad support in the Democratic-controlled Congress for the anti-AIDS spending that has become the largest-ever international health initiative devoted to one disease, so there is not much danger of failing to continue it.

But with the program expiring this year, a political and ideological showdown is brewing in Washington over the initiative’s terms and size. Bush hopes that putting real, grateful faces on the program — moms and dads controlling the disease and children who were born HIV-free to infected mothers, all because of U.S.-funded treatment — would strengthen his hand in the debate.

The president’s three-night stay in this vast East Africa nation takes him to a part of the continent that is important in the U.S. fight against terrorism. The bombed-out former U.S. Embassy in Dar es Salaam still stands as a stark reminder of deadly attacks in Tanzania and Nairobi, Kenya, in 1998.

The visit to Tanzania is the longest of Bush’s six-day African trip and longer than usual for the president anywhere. The stay and the celebration of a new five-year $698 million U.S. aid pact were intended as goodwill messages to Tanzania’s large Muslim population.

It seemed to work. In contrast to the protests that often greet him at home and abroad, Bush repeatedly received enthusiastic receptions in Tanzania.

Thousands of people lined his motorcade route from the airport Saturday night. A large and spirited crowd waved U.S. and Tanzanian flags Sunday as he walked into the graceful, oceanfront State House for meetings with President Kikwete.

Thousands more people crowded along Dar es Salaam’s dusty and rutted streets as Bush went from event to event. Special local cloth was woven in honor of Bush’s visit; his picture was emblazoned across ever-present shirts and sarongs.

A billboard advertisement in downtown for a Kilimanjaro Casino poker tournament offered a coincidental but telling message: “A little bit of Texas in Dar,” it said.