W's D-Day speech on 100G set
BY THOMAS M. DeFRANK, DAILY NEWS WASHINGTON BUREAU CHIEF
WASHINGTON - White House aides advancing President Bush (news - web sites)'s Normandy visit ordered the Pentagon (news - web sites) to erect a $100,000 platform for his entry into a U.S. military cemetery, well-placed sources told the Daily News.
American taxpayers picked up the six-figure tab for the red carpet, walkway and artificial island hurriedly built over a memorial pool so that Bush and French President Jacques Chirac could walk in style to the dais for last week's ceremony commemorating the 60th anniversary of the D-Day landings.
Military engineers were given just one day's notice to create the set for Bush's speech at the U.S. cemetery at Colleville-sur-Mer, these sources told The News.
In addition, White House staffers demanded that bleachers erected for several thousand spectators be torn down, limiting the number of guests who could attend the event. "Some 25-year-old White House kid thought they weren't esthetically pleasing," one administration official complained.
The red carpet price tag wasn't anticipated by Pentagon planners, so the $100,000, which has already been paid out to the civilian contractors who did the work, will have to be scrounged from somewhere else.
"That money will have to come out of some account that otherwise would be spent on soldiers," according to a source familiar with the situation.
White House officials said a precise cost for the bridge could not be determined, because it was part of a much larger cost of preparing the site for the President.
"There are not separate breakouts," said White House spokeswoman Claire Buchan, adding that the government would be billed for the bridge, scaffolding, chairs, wheelchair ramps and other amenities at the site.
The expensive choreography was a drop in the bucket compared with the overall cost of the U.S. government's participation in D-Day celebrations in France - estimated at $30 million by knowledgeable officials.
That sum includes about $24 million in direct costs like building roads, highways, parking lots and other infrastructure in Normandy, as well as $6 million in value-added taxes paid to the French government.
American diplomats are privately irked that the French have rejected a U.S. request to waive the taxes on the grounds that most of the $30 million was for projects that benefit France permanently. Buchan said the French will pick up some of the cost.