Bush Aides Meet Angry Mother of Fallen Soldier

Two senior White House aides met with the angry mother of a fallen U.S. soldier Saturday, but they rejected Cindy Sheehan’s demand for a direct accounting from President Bush for the way he has conducted the war in Iraq.

The surprise meeting, which lasted about 45 minutes, took place on a roadside several miles from the president’s ranch, where federal and local law enforcement officials had halted Sheehan’s advance toward the 1,600-acre estate. Bush is spending much of August on vacation at the ranch.

Sheehan, a 48-year-old from Vacaville, Calif., was accompanied by about 50 placard-wielding antiwar activists. After police and Secret Service agents stopped their march on a country lane, Sheehan and half a dozen resolute supporters stayed put while others turned back, trudging down Prairie Chapel Road under the hot Central Texas sun.

After her conversation with national security advisor Stephen Hadley and White House Deputy Chief of Staff Joe Hagin, Sheehan said in an interview that she would remain in Crawford and continue to seek a meeting with Bush.

“I didn’t change my mind at all,” she said.

“They said the president really believed that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction,” Sheehan said.

“And I told them: ‘I might be a grieving mom, but you men are very intelligent, and I know you don’t believe what you’re telling me.’ ”

Hadley and Hagin said they would relay her sentiments to Bush, according to Sheehan.

The president has met privately around the country with numerous family members of soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan, but not with relatives who actively oppose the war.

“We mourn the loss of every life, and Americans deeply appreciate those who have made the supreme sacrifice,” White House Deputy Press Secretary Trent Duffy said. “The way to honor that sacrifice is to complete the mission so that their lives were not lost in vain.”

Sheehan’s son Casey, 24, was killed in the Sadr City section of Baghdad on April 4, 2004. She is a founder of Gold Star Families for Peace, an organization of people who have lost loved ones as a result of war, particularly in Iraq.

Sheehan has previously been turned away while trying to protest the war at the Pentagon.

She told reporters here that she not only opposed the war but objected to Bush’s assertions that U.S. soldiers had died “for a noble cause.”

“I don’t want him to use my son’s name, or my name, to justify any more killings. And I want to tell the president that, and I want to ask the president why my son died,” Sheehan said, contending that the war was “based on horrendous lies and deceptions.”

Her meeting with two of Bush’s top aides came amid a surge in U.S. casualties in Iraq and sagging public support for the president’s handling of the war.

A Newsweek poll released Saturday found that 61% of Americans disapproved of Bush’s handling of the war and 34% approved. The magazine said the poll, conducted Tuesday through Thursday, marked Bush’s lowest approval rating yet on Iraq and was the first time it had dropped below 40%.

Half of respondents said the U.S. was losing ground in its efforts to establish security and democracy in Iraq; 40% said the U.S. was making progress.