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Europe & Canada Opposed To Any U.S. Attack on Iraq
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| "If the Americans want to act alone, there's nothing one can do," said Chretien. |
BERLIN,
Feb. 19 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - U.S. allies in Europe and U.S.
neighbor Canada are deeply fearful that the Bush administration is moving
inexorably toward a military clash with Iraq, news agencies reported.
Canadian
leaders remained cautious Monday, February 19, on whether they might support any
eventual U.S. action against Iraq in Washington's self-declared campaign on
terror.
In
Berlin, where he is leading a trade mission, Canadian Prime Minister Jean
Chretien said U.S. allies could not prevent Washington from taking unilateral
military action on Iraq.
"If
the Americans want to act alone, there's nothing one can do," Agence
France-Presse (AFP) quoted Chretien as telling journalists after talks with
German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder.
In
Ottawa, Deputy Prime Minister John Manley, who is in charge of the key cabinet
committee on security, told reporters an international basis would have to exist
for Canada to get involved in any future action.
Asked
if Canada would insist on United Nations approval, Manley said: "In the
absence of that kind of framework, it would not be Canada's policy to push on
into other operations."
The
United States has offered increasing hints that Iraq could be the next target in
the U.S. campaign on terrorism.
But
both Chretien and Schroeder stressed that military action against Iraq is
"not on the agenda" and noted that U.S. government had promised to
consult its allies if it took a decision to hit Iraq.
Both
men also expressed reluctance to discuss what they said was a "hypothetical
question", but reaffirmed their solidarity with the United States in the
international coalition against terrorism.
The
chancellor said that during his visit early this month to the United States,
President George W. Bush assured him that "military action [against Iraq]
is not on the agenda" and that there was "no reason not to trust
him".
The
president had also promised to consult Washington's allies if there was any
change in this position. "So there is no reason to discuss this, there is
no change to be seen," Schroeder said.
In
Ottawa, recently appointed Foreign Minister Bill Graham was, if anything, more
cautious, according to AFP.
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| "The international
coalition against terror is not the basis to take action against someone
-- least of all unilaterally," Fischer said.
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Talking
to reporters outside the House of Commons, Graham said: "Any action in the
future? Obviously we will have to look at what those circumstances were. We do
not know what those circumstances would be in the future."
Pressed,
he added: "The Americans are looking at their options now. Let's wait to
see what options they choose."
Graham
said he had recently discussed the situation with U.S. Secretary of State Colin
Powell.
Asked
if he had urged Powell to work through the United Nations, Graham said:
"Yes. Absolutely. We urged that we use all international procedures
available to work towards limiting Mr. Saddam Hussein's ability to acquire
weapons of mass destruction."
In
Rome, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said Monday that he intends to
continue political dialogue with Iraq until further notice, even though the
country has been isolated by the United States.
"We
hope there is room to maneuver for dialogue," Berlusconi, who is also
interim foreign minister, said at the sidelines of a reception at the Italian
embassy at the Vatican.
"In
any case, until the opposite is proven, we will continue with the politics of
dialogue" with Iraq," he added.
Berlusconi,
who heads a center-right coalition government, is considered a strong ally of
U.S. President George W. Bush.
European
skepticism about strikes on Iraq had been building for weeks, but blossomed
after President Bush's State of the Union address, in which he referred to Iraq,
Iran and North Korea as an "axis of evil".
French
Foreign Minister Hubert Vedrine called the Bush administration's approach
"simplistic". He was joined by German Foreign Minister Joschka
Fischer, a pro-American politician who risked the political future of his party,
the historically pacifist Greens, to support the U.S. campaign in Afghanistan.
"The
international coalition against terror is not the basis to take action against
someone -- least of all unilaterally," Fischer told the German newspaper
Die Welt. "All European foreign ministers see it that way. That is why the
phrase 'axis of evil' leads nowhere."
However,
British Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott said in Manama Monday Iraq must
comply with U.N. resolutions, notably those pertaining to ridding Baghdad of
mass destruction weapons.
"Our
position is clear. There are United Nations resolutions Iraq has to comply with,
starting with [those dealing with dismantling] weapons of mass
destruction," he told a news conference during a visit to Bahrain.
"The
secretary general of the Arab League [Amr Mussa] said he wanted to have more
talks ... So we have to wait and see," Prescott said.
Mussa
said after talks with Iraqi President Saddam Hussein in Baghdad last month that
he had been asked to convey messages to U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan and
Arab leaders.
Prescott
refused to elaborate on Britain's position on an eventual U.S. military
operation aimed at toppling the Baghdad regime.
"Yes,
we have special relations with the Americans, but that does not mean we agree on
(everything) they say or do," he said.
British
Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said on Friday he shared the aim of the United
States in getting rid of Saddam, but that London had not made any decisions
about military action.
Straw,
in a visit to Washington three days after Bush spoke those words, brushed aside
the remarks as domestic politicking. "The president's State of the Union
speech is best understood in the context of the midterm elections in November,
it seems to me," Straw told the British media.
Without evidence of Iraqi involvement in the September 11 attacks -- of which
there is none so far -- the Europeans question the legality of military action
and fear it could cause chaos in the Arab world, cast the United States as bent
on hegemony and spark intense anti-Americanism in Europe.
"We
know which nations' representatives and citizens were fighting alongside the
Taliban and where their activities were financed from," Russian President
Vladimir Putin said last week. "Iraq is not on this list."
European
officials insist that there are still diplomatic and economic avenues to ensure
that Iraq is not developing weapons of mass destruction. Fischer said that Iraq
should be pressed to allow U.N. inspectors to return to the country and that
"the sanctions regime must be further developed so that Iraq cannot produce
or bring on line weapons of mass destruction." Patten said the Iraqi
opposition could be bolstered.
Despite
the differences, Europeans say they share the Bush administration's goal of
bringing down the Iraqi leader. "We would like a new government leadership
in Iraq, primarily because the people need a new government," said Karsten
Voigt, coordinator of German-American relations at the Foreign Ministry in
Berlin. "The differences start on how to achieve that. We need a serious
debate across the Atlantic."
Europe
has a long-standing pattern of hesitating in the face of U.S. determination to
act militarily, followed by unifying with the Americans as hostilities loom. But
this time, the Europeans are clearly opposed to expanding the war on terrorism
to Iraq.
"No support," Josef Joffe, a German foreign policy analyst and editor
of the weekly Die Zeit, said in an interview. "Will Europe do anything to
hinder it if the U.S. goes ahead? No. Will they deny things like overflight
rights? No… But active political support? None."
"The stunning and unexpectedly rapid success of the military campaign in
Afghanistan was a tribute to American capacity," Chris Patten, the European
Union's external affairs commissioner, wrote in Friday's Financial Times of
London.
"But it has perhaps reinforced some dangerous instincts: 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 may be useful as an optional extra but
that the U.S. is big enough to manage without them if it must," Patten
added. 
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