Rumsfeld: Mehr als ein Affront
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Die Regierung in Washington steht innenpolitisch zunehmend unter starkem Druck. Und die Skeptiker jenseits des Atlantiks hören sich sehr genau an, was die Politiker Westeuropas zu sagen haben. Rumsfeld, der sich aus Europa Vorwürfe anhören muss, die USA als Zentrum der Welt zu sehen, gibt den Vorwurf nun zurück: Er wirft Frankreich und Deutschland, sich als Europa zu betrachten und die Osteuropäer dabei völlig zu ignorieren.
Der Verteidigungsminister will damit zu verstehen geben, dass er Alternativen hat und auf die Westeuropäer nicht angewiesen ist. Denn der diplomatische Poker um das Vorgehen des Sicherheitsrates nach dem Bericht der Waffeninspekteure am kommenden Montag hat bereits begonnen. Die USA suchen eine Mehrheit für ein hartes Vorgehen gegen Irak - und kämpfen mit harten Bandagen. Sein Argument soll Europa spalten, und das könnte ihm sogar gelingen.
So long,
Calexa
www.investorweb.de
Say authority rests with UN; US rejects view
By John Donnelly and Robert Schlesinger, Globe Staff, 1/23/2003
WASHINGTON - In a growing rift with the United States, the leaders of France and Germany yesterday declared their united opposition to a war against Iraq. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld responded dismissively, saying the countries represented ''old Europe.''
President Jacques Chirac of France called for giving United Nations weapons inspectors more time in Iraq and said that ''war is always the admission of defeat and is always the worst of solutions.''
In another show of solidarity yesterday, France and Germany led an effort in Brussels to delay a NATO decision on a US request for assistance in the event of a war with Iraq, diplomats said.
Chirac and Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder of Germany, stressing that any decision to launch an attack should be made by the UN Security Council, pledged to speak with one voice as a key deadline neared. On Monday, the weapons inspectors will report to the Security Council on their first 60 days' work in Iraq.
''War is not inevitable,'' Chirac said to applause from French and German deputies at a joint parliamentary session in the Versailles palace marking the 40th anniversary of the Elysee Treaty, which cemented the countries' postwar reconciliation.
''France and Germany, who are successively chairing the Security Council, are coordinating their positions closely to give peace every possible chance.''
After the ceremony, Schroeder said, ''We agree completely to harmonize our positions as closely as possible to find a peaceful solution.''
But President Bush suggested he had little faith that the inspections process would disarm Iraq, saying Saddam Hussein wants more time to give the ''so-called inspectors more runaround.''
Bush also warned Iraqi soldiers that if they used chemical or biological weapons against US troops, they could face a war crimes tribunal.
''Should any Iraqi officer or soldier receive an order from Saddam Hussein or his sons or any of the killers who occupy the high [offices] of their government, my advice is don't follow that order,'' Bush said in St. Louis, where he was promoting his tax cut plan.
Bush said that Iraqi soldiers who used chemical or biological weapons would be treated, tried, and prosecuted as a war criminals.
Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, in an interview with the Globe on Tuesday, indicated that the international community, not the United States, would decide the issue of war crimes regarding Iraq.
Asked whether he would craft a deal that would allow Hussein to avoid prosecution in exchange for going into exile, Powell said, ''I'm not sure what the whole international community might be willing to do.''
Despite the tension with France and Germany, Powell and outside analysts said that the US relationship with the two countries could be mended in the coming weeks. Some suggested that if the United States presented compelling evidence about Iraq's alleged programs to make chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons, countries that are now opposed to war might shift their opinions.
Rumsfeld indicated that the United States was prepared to release material.
''If the president decides it's necessary to use force because of a lack of cooperation on the part of Iraq, [he] would very likely present to the world some additional information related ... to Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, its relationship with terrorist organizations,'' he told reporters.
Rumsfeld also took a swipe at the importance of the joint stand by France and Germany, saying it didn't represent the majority view of European countries.
''We rarely find unanimity in the world,'' he said. ''You're thinking of Europe as France and Germany. I don't. That's old Europe. If you take a look at the entire Europe today, the center of gravity has shifted east.''
In a meeting earlier this year, a senior NATO official said that nine European countries expressed at least partial support for the US position on Iraq: Britain, Italy, Poland, Spain, Denmark, Portugal, Norway, the Czech Republic, and Turkey.
But a senior US official said yesterday that if the United States and a few allies go to war without Security Council approval, the real impact of the united stand by France and Germany would depend on the duration and outcome of the fighting.
''If it's quick and we discover lots of nasty weapons, the assumption is that the world looks at that and says, `Hmmm, maybe they had something here.' A sheepish French-German axis disappears in prominence,'' said the senior official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. ''If [the fighting] bogs down, then it does become very serious, and it's not just those two, but a variety of other countries who would oppose us.''
The wrangling at NATO headquarters presented another potential obstacle to the United States. Last week, Washington formally asked the 19-nation alliance to take immediate measures to defend Turkey in case of a counterattack by Iraq. US officials are also seeking overflight rights and equipment such as AWACS radar planes, minesweepers, and patrol ships, and use of NATO planning facilities.
Diplomats said Germany, France, along with Belgium and Luxembourg, pressed for more time to make a decision, but left open the possibility that the request might be eventually approved.
Charles A. Kupchan, a European analyst at the Council of Foreign Relations, said he believed the split between the United States and France and Germany was potentially a '' historical watershed.''
''Assuming we are where we are today, which is in a massive gray zone, I believe an attack by the US really does hit at the underpinnings of the international order that has emerged since World War II,'' Kupchan said. ''Effectively, it would bring the Atlantic alliance to an end. It would send a strong message to the Europeans that they are on their own, and vice versa.''
Several analysts said that many in the Bush administration, including Rumsfeld, have long been dismissive of Europe and don't view the split as much of a change in the way the United States operates in the world. They also said it could give further rise to a US-British-Australian military axis, which has gained strength since their close cooperation during the Afghan war. The Australian government yesterday announced that an unspecified number of troops were preparing to leave for the Middle East for a possible war against Iraq. The Globe reported earlier this month that small numbers of Australian special forces had been working alongside US, British, and Jordanian commandos inside Iraq since September.
Material from Reuters was included in this report. John Donnelly can be reached at donnelly@globe.com; Robert Schlesinger can be reached at schlesinger@globe.com.
This story ran on page A1 of the Boston Globe on 1/23/2003.
kauboi.webber
Optionen
The message from the Bush camp: 'It's war within weeks'
- Washington now concentrating on timing
- State of union address to 'turn up the heat'
- Blair faces nightmare scenario over war decision
Friday January 24, 2003
The Guardian
President George Bush is determined to go to war with Saddam Hussein in the next few weeks, without UN backing if necessary, according to authoritative sources in Washington and London.
The US president is "to turn up the heat" in his state of the union address on Tuesday.
"The pressure comes from President Bush and it is felt all the way down," a European official said. "They're talking about weeks, not months. Months is a banned word now."
Mr Bush wanted the US secretary of state, Colin Powell, to force the issue of military action by presenting evidence of Saddam Hussein's violations of UN resolutions immediately after weapons inspectors give their report to the UN on Monday. In Washington circles such an event is being referred to as the Adlai Stevenson moment.
The "Adlai Stevenson moment" has become Washington shorthand for the US presentation of its intelligence case. Stevenson was the US ambassador to the UN at the time of the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, who dramatically confronted the Soviet envoy with vivid aerial photographs of nuclear missiles being unloaded in Cuba.
Downing Street was alarmed by the Bush administration's sudden haste in moving towards a climax. It was adamant that the decision to go to war should not be declared before Tony Blair flies to Camp David for talks with Mr Bush next Friday.
An informed source in Washington said: "Blair is a good guy. They won't want to do that to him. They want it to look like he played a part in the policy- making but the decision has been made."
A key moment will now be the state of the union address. According to a Washington source, the US administration remains divided along old fault lines about the precise timescale of war. The US secretary of state, Donald Rumsfeld, wants Mr Bush to set a clear and imminent deadline. But Mr Powell, is resisting, asking for a little more time for diplomatic coalition- building.
But both sides of the divide are making it increasingly clear that the end result will be military action, with or without UN backing.
The chief White House spokesman, Ari Fleischer, yesterday brushed off mounting anti-war feeling across Europe, led by France. It was "entirely possible that France won't be on the line", he said, adding that Britain, Australia, Italy, Spain and "virtually all of the eastern European countries" would provide support.
Mr Powell echoed this, saying: "I don't think we will have to worry about going it alone."
The impatience within the White House for action against Iraq came on a day in which the cracks in the international coalition against Iraq widened. China and Russia joined France and Germany in warning the US against precipitate action and calling for Washington to work within the UN.
The German foreign minister, Joschka Fischer, revealed the extent of European anger over the US position when he told Washington to "cool down". The Russian foreign minister, Igor Ivanov, said: "Russia deems that there is no evidence that would justify a war in Iraq."
Mr Blair now finds himself perilously close to his nightmare scenario - sandwiched between a US administration bent on war and the rest of Europe either openly hostile to military action or passively resistant.
Britain believes it has won a short reprieve before the US presents its own intelligence evidence against Saddam Hussein, in effect a declaration of war, but only for a fortnight at most.
Mr Bush will lay out the broad case for toppling President Saddam next Tuesday but White House officials insist the speech, a year after the president coined the phrase, "axis of evil", will stop short of being a declaration of war. That will await a more detailed presentation of intelligence evidence in the next few weeks, after Mr Blair visits Camp David.
"We said that has to be a substantive consultation, not a fait accompli," one British official said. The British argument is that the longer the US waits before showing its hand, the better the case it will have to put before the UN security council, as the inspectors come across more Iraqi infringements.
The Foreign Office had initially sought to defuse the rising tension around next Monday's inspectors' report by denying that it represented a "moment of truth", but in recent days a source conceded: "That was never going to be realistic. Of course it's important."
At his meeting with Mr Powell yesterday, the foreign secretary, Jack Straw, clung to the official line. "There are still ways that this can be resolved peacefully," he said. Mr Straw repeated that the British preference is for a second UN resolution before any further action against Iraq but Mr Powell, in a change of tack, refused to commit himself to seeking a second resolution.
One of the factors behind Washington's haste appears to be the annual rise in temperatures in the Iraqi desert over the next few months. In theory, US and some allied troops have the capacity to fight in any weather but the effectiveness of both soldiers and equipment diminishes rapidly when the temperature rises over 35C.
"The planes have been designed for the cold war. They start losing lift, carry lighter loads, and must make shorter runs when the temperature goes over 35," said one government official involved in Anglo-American debates over the timing of an attack.
Grüße Max