The White House is denying President Bush ever told top Palestinian officials that God had told him to invade Afghanistan and Iraq and to work for the establishment of a Palestinian state in order to bring peace to the Middle East.
White House spokesman Ken Lisaius told The Chronicle Friday that the allegation was absurd. "He never made such comments," Lisaius said. He cited a briefing Thursday in which presidential press secretary Scott McClellan also denied that Bush had made such comments at a 2003 meeting in Jordan with Mahmoud Abbas, then the Palestinian prime minister, and Nabil Shaath, then the Palestinian foreign minister. McClellan said he had not been present at the meeting but had "checked into that report."