CRAWFORD, Texas, 27 April — Crown Prince Abdullah, deputy premier and commander of the National Guard, and President George W. Bush and bonded over beef tenderloin and vanilla ice cream at the US leader’s secluded Central Texas ranch on Thursday.
Bush, a man who puts great stock in the power of personal relationships, told reporters he and the crown prince had established a strong bond during their five hours together at “Prairie Chapel,” the president’s 1,600-acre (647 hectare) spread outside the tiny town of Crawford.
“He’s a man who’s got a farm and he understands the land, and I really took great delight in being able to drive him around in a pickup truck and showing him the trees and my favorite spots,” Bush said.
After a lunch of pecan-encrusted beef tenderloin, new potato salad, mini soda bread muffins, brownies and scoops of Texas-made Blue Bell ice cream, the 55-year-old president took the wheel of his pickup and treated the 77-year-old crown prince to a tour of the ranch’s most picturesque sites.
Those would include “The Cathedral,” one of seven small, but dramatic, canyons carved through the land by thousands of years of water erosion where Bush spent much of the past two summers clearing a trail and laying a wooden walkway.
Uncertain how the first face-to-face meeting between Bush and Abdullah would go given rising tension in the Middle East, the White House had not built-in time for a ranch tour.
A senior administration official said after the two men spent more than an hour alone, Abdullah, whom Bush referred to as “Your Royal Highness” all day, embraced the idea of exploring the wild-flower dotted landscape. But in a nod to the meeting’s seriousness, there was no television footage of the tour.
One of the highlights, for Bush at least, was the sighting of some game.
“We saw a wild turkey, which was good,” he told reporters.
The president began the day like any nervous host, pacing back and forth, hands in pockets, in the enclosed breezeway of the modest, stone-clad house he and first lady Laura Bush built in the shelter of a grove of trees.
His guest was late.
But 10 minutes after the appointed hour, the crown prince’s five-vehicle motorcade passed through the gate of “Prairie Chapel,” rolled through broad green pastures lush from recent spring rains and up a gravel driveway lined by oak trees.
Bush, who previously has hosted Russian President Vladimir Putin and British Prime Minister Tony Blair at the ranch in jeans, boots and an open-necked shirt, met the brown-robed Abdullah at the door wearing a coat, tie and an outsized silver, Western-style belt buckle.
Their meeting went two hours longer than scheduled because, as Bush put it, “There was a lot to discuss.”
“I was honored to welcome Crown Prince Abdullah to my ranch, a place that is very special for me and a place where I welcome special guests to our country,” he said.
“I am convinced that the stronger our personal bond is, the more likely it is relations between our countries will be strong.”
The only obviously discordant note in the bucolic setting was played out a few miles away where a lone protester holding a sign that read “Sharon is a Terrorist, Bush is a Moron” kept solitary vigil on the quiet country road Abdullah’s motorcade traveled to reach the Bush ranch.
Steve Stokely drove 40 kilometers from his home in Cranfills Gap to mount his one-man protest outside Crawford after trying, but failing, to get a permit to demonstrate in the town itself.
“Sometimes you have to do it,” he said with a shrug of his shoulders. “Bush is completely wrong. He’s unfair to the Palestinians. He says Israel has the right to defend itself but the Palestinians don’t.”
