FOXNews.com: Visa request from Sudan's Bashir puts US in difficult situation

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Visa request from Sudan's Bashir puts US in difficult situation Sep 23rd 2013, 18:19 Published September 23, 2013 FoxNews.com FILE: August 27, 2013: Sudan President Omar al-Bashir at a news conference in Omdurman, Sudan.REUTERS The Obama administration remained mum Monday on whether it will grant a visa to accused war criminal and Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, who wants to address the U.N. General Assembly this week in New York.  Bashir told reporters over the weekend that he's booked a New York City hotel and plans to fly into the United States via Morocco, following the State Department confirming last week that he has indeed applied for a visa.  Bashir's wishes have put the U.S. government in a tricky and troubling situation. The Sudanese leader has been indicted by the International Criminal Court in connection with the killing of thousands in Sudan's western province of Darfur. The coordinated campaign of killings is widely considered a textbook genocide - the Sudanese government has been accused of working with armed militias to systemically kill non-Arab residents.  The ICC has already asked the U.S. to cooperate with the warrants should Bashir should come to the United States in connection with the arrest warrants filed against him in 2009 and 2010.  But the United States is also not a party to the ICC. And the government may instead be obligated to issue Bashir his visa despite his gory past.  James Rubin, a former Pentagon official and Middle East expert with the conservative-leaning American Enterprise Institute, said Monday the U.S. must issue Bashir a visa because it is the United Nation's host country.  "We have to," he told FoxNews.com. "But we are under no obligations to provide any services."  If Bashir is allowed to travel to New York, he'll be one of several unsavory characters mulling in the halls during the General Assembly session, including Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe.  The session has often turned into a forum for some of the world's worst actors.  In September 2009, Muammar Qaddafi, the so-called "mad dog of the Middle East, was permitted to come to the United Nations in New York to deliver a speech but found securing accommodations more difficult -- trying to sleep in a tent in Central Park and Donald Trump's Westchester County estate before finally getting into a Manhattan hotel.  Rubin thinks Bashir is coming to the United Nations for no other reason but to "thumb his nose at the United States and the rest of the world."  "If you want that stage, there's no better place than the United Nations for rouges and homicidal maniacs."  Besides Qaddafi, other world leaders who have come to the United States to speak before the U.N. include Iran President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the late Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.  The State Department did not respond to a question Monday on whether it has decided to issue a visa.  Last week, agency spokeswoman Marie Harf said only that the application had been submitted and that "a lot of considerations going into this request, including the outstanding warrant."  However, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power called Bashir's request "deplorable."  "It would be more appropriate for him to present himself to the ICC and travel to the Hague," she said.

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