PHOTO: REUTERS

AL JAZEERA ONLINE

Former United States President George W Bush ordered the CIA to search for a replacement for Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat after the escalation of the second Intifada in 2001, the BBC said, quoting recently released British documents.

The US effort came after the failure of the Camp David negotiations in 2000 between Arafat and then-Israeli PM Ehud Barak.

When Bush was inaugurated in January 2001, the second Palestinian uprising was at its height. The Bush administration called on Arafat to stop the uprising.

After the negotiations were aborted, telephone talks were held between Bush and then-British PM Tony Blair, who, according to the talsk, said Arafat was a liability.

Bush endorsed what Blair had said, then described Arafat as “weak and useless”. He revealed that he had asked the CIA to search for possible successors to the Palestinian leader but said that the agency “researched the Palestinian scene thoroughly and concluded that there is no successor available”.

The British documents revealed that the US secretary of state at the time, Colin Powell, did not agree with Bush’s search for a replacement for Arafat.