Print This Story  E-mail This Story

http://news.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2002/02/19/wirq19.xml

Here are 3 articles on the world's response to Bush rallying support for his war on Terrorism.

Article #1 - Germany and France warn Bush on Iraq
By Toby Helm in Berlin and Ben Fenton in Washington
(Filed: 19/02/2002)

THE transatlantic rift deepened yesterday when Germany joined France in opposing military strikes against Iraq as part of a new front in the war on terrorism.

President Bush said he was keeping "all options on the table" to deal with Baghdad, but Chancellor Gerhard Schroder's government said it would not back American "adventures" unless there was proof that Saddam Hussein's regime was directly linked to the September 11 attacks.

John Manley, Canada's deputy foreign minister, answered concerns that his country would be sucked into an attack on Iraq by saying: "We decide for ourselves what we're going to do."

Vice-President Dick Cheney repeated the promise to prevent Iraq, Iran and North Korea from threatening America or its allies.

Asked yesterday about comments by Hubert Vedrine, the French foreign minister, criticising US policy on terrorism, Mr Bush said: "The leaders I've talked to fully understand exactly what needs to happen . . . We're going to seize the moment, and do it."

The public airing of European doubts is causing growing irritation in the Bush administration. Gen Colin Powell, the secretary of state, accused M Vedrine of having an attack of "the vapours".

Joschka Fischer, Germany's foreign minister, aired worries about military strikes on Iraq and what lay behind Mr Bush's talk of an "axis of evil" between Iran, Iraq and North Korea. "There is a debate that is getting more intense and that we view with concern," he told the Die Welt newspaper.

The magazine Der Spiegel said Mr Fischer had told the cabinet the fight against terrorism should not be allowed to become a global military campaign. "The day could come when the Europeans have to make clear that this is not their policy."

In a seemingly concerted effort by Germany to show the extent of its worries, Karsten Voigt, the Foreign Ministry's co-ordinator for US-German co-operation, said Berlin also wanted a new regime in Baghdad, but doubted whether military action was the best way.

United Nations inspectors should be allowed in to check whether Saddam was stockpiling nuclear, chemical or biological weapons. But fighting the spread of weapons of mass destruction "is not the same subject as the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington," Mr Voigt told a radio station.

Washington was infuriated last week by attacks from Chris Patten, the European Union's external affairs commissioner, who said: "To brand a disparate group of countries as an axis of evil did not strike me as the finest phrase ever produced by the president's speech writers."

Growing US hostility to Iran and North Korea was seen in Brussels as a calculated slap in the face, because the EU is promoting friendly ties with the regimes of Iran and North Korea.

EU diplomats say Washington was warned in the clearest terms before the speech that military action against Iraq would shatter the post-September 11 alliance unless there was proof of Saddam's involvement.

The row has ended a period of remarkable transatlantic solidarity in which Nato invoked Article 5 for the first time, agreeing spontaneously that the alliance had been attacked as a single entity, and the EU backed military action against the Taliban as legitimate self-defence by America.

Relations between Europe and Washington are also strained by US policy on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Many European leaders are said to feel that Washington is too pro-Israel.

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.)

  Print This Story  E-mail This Story

---

Article #2 - Allies Hear Sour Notes in 'Axis of Evil' Chorus
By DAVID E. SANGER
February 17, 2002

WASHINGTON, Feb. 16 — As a new and glaring rift emerges between the White House and America's allies over how to pursue the next phase of the war on terrorism, something odd has happened: President Bush and his top aides now seem to welcome, even to egg on, the sharp differences prompted by Mr. Bush's determination to expand his battle against what he calls "evil" regimes.

In private, his friends and closest aides report, Mr. Bush fumes about weak-kneed "European elites" and scared Arab leaders who, in his view, lack the courage to stand up to states that may one day provide terrorists with nuclear or biological weapons.

Today Mr. Bush departed for Asia saying that the goal of his trip was to strengthen his antiterrorism coalition. But it was telling that even before Air Force One departed, the South Korean press was filled with denunciations of his inclusion of North Korea as part of the "axis of evil," protesting that Mr. Bush was undercutting years of diplomacy aimed at luring the Stalinist North out of its frightfully armed shell with economic incentives.

In China, where Mr. Bush is making a delayed state visit, the country's leadership has warned in the past few weeks of "serious consequences" if the president takes military action against Iraq. Beijing has voiced worries about a re-emergence of American unilateralism, which it thought had faded in the months after the Sept. 11 attacks.

But in the last two weeks, Mr. Bush's strident tone has suggested just the opposite. In appearances across the country, he has built on the "axis of evil" phraseology of his State of the Union address, knowing full well that each repetition irritates and divides the countries he once hailed as his great coalition partners.

His national security aides — usually more attuned to how Mr. Bush's words play Poland or Peru than Peoria — have begun to cite evidence that Americans are behind the broader mission of rooting out rogue states seeking weapons of mass destruction, even if the allies are not.

They compare Mr. Bush's mission to Ronald Reagan's single-minded goal of ridding the world of Communism. They describe their boss as a man who emerged from the first phase of the war more convinced than ever that the United States alone has the power to complete its task, with the coalition if possible — and without them if necessary.

It is an America-first position that Vice President Dick Cheney voiced with particular clarity on Friday to the Council on Foreign Relations.

"America has friends and allies in this cause, but only we can lead it," he said in a ballroom filled with many of his old friends and former colleagues. "Only we can rally the world in a task of this complexity against an enemy so elusive and so resourceful. The United States and only the United States can see this effort through to victory."

When America's allies have begged to differ in recent days, they have found themselves engaged in open, public bickering with even with the most diplomatic members of Mr. Bush's war council.

It started when France's foreign minister, Hubert Védrine, dismissed Mr. Bush's approach to Iran, Iraq and North Korea as "simplistic," and Secretary of State Colin L. Powell shot back that his French colleague was "getting the vapors."

Then, all this week, there has been a far more telling war of words between Mr. Powell and Christopher Patten, the European Union's foreign affairs minister. Until a few days ago, he was a favorite of Washington conservatives for the tough line he took against China while serving as Britain's last governor general to Hong Kong.

When Mr. Patten started off the tiff by accusing Mr. Bush of taking an "absolutist" approach to the world, Mr. Powell shot back that his old friend deeply misunderstood and said, "I shall have a word with him, as they say in Britain."

Before he had a chance, Mr. Patten published a lengthy rebuke of the administration in The Financial Times, saying that American success in Afghanistan had "reinforced some dangerous instincts," including the belief that "the projection of military power is the only basis of true security," that "the U.S. can rely only on itself," and that allies were "an optional extra."

He is hardly alone in that view. The German foreign minister, Joschka Fischer, said this week that the Bush administration was treating coalition partners like "satellites," a term clearly meant as a comparison to the old Soviet Union and its Eastern Bloc.

And then President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, Mr. Bush's newest strategic partner, weighed in with the observation that the members of the antiterror coalition signed up to battle the Taliban and Al Qaeda, and "Iraq is not on this list."

Even Canada — America's closest allies save for Britain — warned that any effort by the United States to act unilaterally in the next phase of the war "will go nowhere."

What makes these exchanges particularly notable, apart from their bluntness, is the shift they reflect in foreign views of Mr. Bush — and Mr. Bush's evolving views of his allies.

For the first nine months of his presidency, whenever Mr. Bush was tempted to act on his own — dumping the Kyoto Protocol on global warming with barely a warning to Japan or Europe, for example — he usually followed up with an intensive round of fence-mending. By this summer, he was moderating his language, paying off America's dues to the United Nations and talking about the future of new partnerships.

Then came Sept. 11 and a new spirit of alliance. European and Asian leaders said they thought they were seeing a George W. Bush emerge. This was a president who invited foreign leaders to the Oval Office for long conversations, who dialed around the globe the way his father once had, whose go-it-alone tendencies were being sanded down by the realities of operating in a complex world that provided many physical and financial havens for terrorists.

Now, they fear, the old Mr. Bush may be re-emerging. The change in view began with his decision to withdraw from the 1972 Antiballistic Missile Treaty, but since Russia seemed to react mildly, so did Europe. It accelerated when he declared that Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters were not "prisoners of war." Then came the "axis of evil," a phrase that European and Asian allies alike said dangerously lumped together three countries that pose very different challenges.

What bothers the Europeans the most is not entirely clear: Mr. Bush's goals, his missionary zeal, or the thought that Washington sees its role as wiping out bad governments and the allies' role as one of cleaning up with aid and peacekeepers.

Deputy Secretary of State Richard L. Armitage has little patience for that kind of hand-wringing. "It's very hard to attack something like `axis of evil,' " he said, "because Mr. Bush was not talking about people, but about regimes."

At the core of the debate lies a deeper question about American foreign policy that now bedevils Mr. Bush and his aides: is America stronger when it acts in an unfettered manner and defends its national interests directly, or when it acts with allies whose interests may frustrate Washington's goals?

---

November 28, 2001

Article #3 -Germany Warns U.S. on New Targets for war. Egypt does the same - see below.

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Filed at 5:08 p.m. ET

BERLIN (AP) -- German leaders voiced concern Wednesday that the United States might seek new military targets in the war on terrorism, warning such a move could ignite a broader conflict.

German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer said "all European nations would view a widening of the conflict with great skepticism."

"We should try to solve regional conflicts politically," Fischer said during a parliamentary debate. "We've explained that very thoroughly and precisely to the United States."

Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder also urged an end to the growing debate on whether countries such as Iraq and Somalia should be targeted after Afghanistan.

"In particular, we should be very careful about discussing new targets in the Middle East," Schroeder told parliament. "More could blow up around our ears that any of us are able to deal with."

Speculation that the United States could move against Iraq was renewed Monday when U.S. President George W. Bush warned Iraqi President Saddam Hussein that he should let U.N. weapons inspectors back into the country "to prove to the world he's not developing weapons of mass destruction."

Asked what would happen if Saddam refused, Bush replied: "He'll find out."

Schroeder has pledged "unconditional solidarity" with the United States after the Sept. 11 terror attacks and offered 3,900 troops to the U.S.-led efforts to smash international terror groups.

But Germany also has stressed the need for diplomacy and economic aid.

November 28, 2001

Egypt Denounces U.S. Force on Iraq

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Filed at 4:52 p.m. ET

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Egypt urged the United States on Wednesday not to use military force against Iraq or any other Arab country in its campaign against terrorism.

Foreign Minister Ahmed Maher said any punishment for defying the United Nations and not permitting the inspection of suspect weapons sites should be meted out in other ways.

Iraq should respect U.N. resolutions, but the resolutions do not authorize a military attack as punishment, the Egyptian minister said.

And using force against Iraq, he said, "would have a negative impact" in the Arab world and in the United States itself.

Maher was in Washington for meetings on Thursday with Secretary of State Colin Powell and members of Congress. He said President Hosni Mubarak had sent him to register Egypt's solidarity with the United States against terrorism.

"While Afghanistan may require the use of force, it should not become the rule," Maher said in a question-and-answer session at the Brookings Institution, a private research group.

President Bush on Monday told Iraqi President Saddam Hussein to allow U.N. weapons inspectors back and warned "he'll find out" the consequences if he does not yield.

Bush deflected questions about whether Iraq would be next in the U.S.-led fight against terrorism. "First things first," the president said.

On Wednesday, Secretary of State Colin Powell said he would advise people in the Middle East "to listen carefully to what the President said."

"The President said the Iraqi regime should allow the U.N. inspectors back in to complete their very, very important work," Powell told reporters.

However, Powell then underscored that "a full range of options" was open to the United States and the international community.

"We'll keep trying to get rid of these programs of weapons of mass destruction that Saddam Hussein has been working on for the last 10 years," he said.

Officials within the administration are in the midst of a debate over whether to take military action against Iraq. Powell is generally considered to be less hawkish than some senior Pentagon officials.

Maher said he understood the United States would not use force against Iraq. Asked how he knew that, the foreign minister, a former Egyptian ambassador to Washington, said it was his "intuition."

Jordan and the Arab League also appealed to the United States not to attack Iraq, saying such a strike would have dangerous consequences.

Jordan "rejects the use of force, external interference in Iraq's affairs and meddling with its integrity," said Saleh Qallab, a government spokesman and a minister of state.

On the Israel-Palestinian dispute, Maher said Powell's description of Israel in a speech last week as an occupier was unprecedented and welcomed by the Egyptian government.

"For the first time, the United States has put its finger on the source of our problems," he said.

At the same time, Maher accused Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and his government of defying the United States with attacks on Palestinians.

He said that Sharon was intentionally trying to provoke the Palestinians to strike back, giving him an excuse not to move ahead with peacemaking.

"We hope the United States will take a tough stance, refusing this provocation and defiance," he said.

Meanwhile, Congress is looking into reports that North Korea is providing Egypt with long-range missiles.

In Cairo, Mubarak vehemently denied the report, suggesting Israel may be behind it in an attempt to undermine U.S.-Egyptian relations.

"This is totally false and incorrect," Mubarak told Egypt's Middle East News Agency. "I have repeatedly said that we are not endeavoring to obtain these kinds of weapons and we do not plan to do so because we do not have aggressive intentions."

The Bush administration plans to sell Egypt 53 advanced Harpoon Block II satellite-guided anti-ship missiles in a $400 million arms deal, a congressional source said Tuesday.

Two senior members of Congress, Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr., D-Del., chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and Rep. Tom Lantos, D-Calif., senior Democrat on the House International Relations Committee, have questioned the U.S. deal as a potential threat to Israeli ships. Presumably, the missiles could reach land targets, as well.

The deal was outlined in a classified memorandum to Congress in early November, said a congressional aide, speaking on condition of anonymity.

© : t r u t h o u t 2001