(Karen) Hughes spells out ways to win hearts (in Middle East)

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http://about.upi.com/products/upi_scitech/UPI-20051014-021705-7405R

Hughes spells out ways to win hearts

WASHINGTON, Oct. 14 (UPI) -- The United States was working on changing its policy to win over public opinion in the Muslim world, a top official said Friday.

"For 60 years, America basically ignored the freedom deficit in the Middle East, hoping that stability would achieve security. And as a result ... we got neither," Karen Hughes, the Undersecretary of State for Public Diplomacy, said at a speech at the George Washington University in Washington. "Instead we got conditions so cancerous that people were willing to fly airplanes into buildings full of innocent people."

She said Washington now stood for freedom and would work to marginalize religious extremists; and work on common interests and values with other nations.

Hughes, a top aide to President Bush who last week was reported to have engineered a meeting between the president and Palestinian officials, said the United States would work to "engage, exchange, educate and empower" Americans and people from other countries in order to reach its stated goals.