Even though the NYPD has rejected Ahmadinejad’s request to visit Ground Zero, one local TV station is reporting that he might try to visit anyway, and that if he did, he would be “accompanied by a Secret Service protective detail, a detail provided to all heads of state when they visit the United States.”
But former U.S. ambassador to the U.N. John Bolton told National Review Online this morning that the U.S. would be well within its rights as host country to limit Ahmadinejad’s travel:
Under the U.N. participation act and our commitment as the host country, we have agreed going back to the beginning of the U.N. to let any head of state or any country that’s a member of the U.N. send its officially accredited leaders and diplomats in to participate in U.N.-related activities. That’s a pain in the neck, frankly, but that’s part of the price of being the host country.
What we never gave up was the right to limit their travel outside of Turtle Bay and wherever their hotel happens to be. [The Iranians] will try to raise a fuss about that. I’m sure the visit was nothing but propaganda.
Apparently the U.S. government can keep Ahmadinejad from visiting Ground Zero if it wants to. So why wouldn’t it?