ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates: Former U.S. president George H.W. Bush was forced here Tuesday into a defense of his son, current U.S. President George W. Bush, whose Mideast policies were derided by a hostile audience.
"My son is an honest man," Bush told Gulf Arabs attending a leadership conference here. "He is working hard for peace. It takes a lot of guts to get up and tell a father about his son in those terms when I just told you the thing that matters in my heart is my family."
Bush added: "How come everybody wants to come to the United States if the United States is so bad?"
Although former leader, who served as president from 1989-1993, claimed to have faced tougher audiences, he conceded that attacks on his sons hurt more than those on him. As curiosity mounts regarding the advice James Baker, the senior Bush's secretary of state, is giving Washington on the war in the Iraq, the former president declined to reveal how he had counseled his son on the conflict.
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