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WASHINGTON - The national security adviser under the first President Bush says the current president acted contemptuously toward NATO and Europe after Sept. 11 and is trying to cooperate now out of desperation to ''rescue a failing venture'' in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Brent Scowcroft, an Ogden native who is a mentor to current National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, also said in an interview published in England that Bush is inordinately influenced by Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.
''Sharon just has him wrapped around his little finger,'' Scowcroft told London's Financial Times. ''I think the president is mesmerized.''
Scowcroft said the Bush administration's ''unilateralist'' position was partly responsible for the post-Sept. 11, 2001, decline of the trans-Atlantic relationship.
''It's in general bad,'' he said. ''It's not really hostile, but there's an edge to it.''
Scowcroft said Sharon ''has been nothing but trouble.''
