Reich's selection as special envoy avoids confirmation battle

www.fortwayne.com Posted on Fri, Jan. 10, 2003 BY TIM JOHNSON Miami Herald

WASHINGTON - The Bush administration, which came to office scoffing at the need to deploy special diplomatic envoys for world trouble spots, named Otto J. Reich on Thursday to become ``special envoy for Western Hemisphere initiatives.''

The selection of the controversial Cuban-born diplomat averted a new confirmation struggle over Reich in the Senate, and at the same time satisfies the key Cuban-American constituency in South Florida.

In another move that pleased conservative Republicans, President Bush said he would nominate Roger F. Noriega, 43, as the State Department's top diplomat in Latin America.

Two years ago, the Bush administration appeared allergic to the numerous ''special envoys'' that proliferated under President Bill Clinton.

''There are a very large number of envoys running around, and I have to make sure we really need them,'' Secretary of State Colin Powell said at his confirmation hearing.

The Bush administration recalled a number of envoys appointed by Clinton but later named special emissaries to the Middle East and Sudan before giving Reich his posting.

Reich, a former lobbyist, will begin work Monday in the Executive Office Building adjacent to the White House.

White House press secretary Ari Fleischer said Reich would coordinate U.S.-Mexico relations, the counter-drug Andean Regional Initiative, aspects of Cuba policy and homeland-security issues in the Caribbean. He will report to national security advisor Condoleezza Rice.

Reich served last year as assistant secretary of State until Nov. 22 but was unable to win Senate confirmation to the post, in part because of his peripheral role in the 1980s Iran-contra scandal, and also because of concerns that he welcomed a short-lived coup in Venezuela last April.

Noriega, the ambassador to the Organization of American States, is the grandson of Mexican immigrants to Kansas.