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Daeubler-Gmelin reportedly accused Bush of adopting Hitler-like policies against Iraq
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WASHINGTON,
September 20 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) – U.S. Secretary of
State Colin Powell called his German counterpart Joschka Fischer
Friday, September 20, 2002, to express Washington's
"outrage" over reported comments, now denied, by a senior
German Minister that compared President George W. Bush's methods to
those of Adolf Hitler.
"The
secretary called Foreign Minister Fischer this morning to express
outrage with the statements that were reported," deputy State
Department spokesman Philip Reeker said, reported Agence France-Presse
(AFP).
He
did not elaborate on the conversation and declined to comment on
German Justice Minister Herta Daeubler-Gmelin's denial that she had
said Bush's tactics on Iraq were similar to Hitler's.
A
senior U.S. official told AFP that Washington "said all we intend
to" on the matter, noting that White House spokesman Ari
Fleischer twice described Daeubler-Gmelin's reported remarks as
"outrageous and inexplicable."
Earlier
Friday in Berlin, Daeubler-Gmelin denied having made the comments,
reported by a German regional newspaper Thursday, September 19, and
said she would never try to harm German-U.S. relations.
Grilled
by reporters for more than an hour, the Minister admitted using the
words "Adolf" and "Nazi" but said the newspaper
misquoted her.
Daeubler-Gmelin
said she used the words in a discussion about using war as a
diversionary tactic to draw attention away from domestic problems, but
that she clearly explained after the remark that she had not intended
to compare Bush with a "criminal."
The
Schwaebisches Tagblatt daily reported that Daeubler-Gmelin made the
remarks during a weekend meeting with metal workers and quoted her as
saying that "Bush wants to divert attention from domestic
political problems" onto Iraq.
"It's
a method that is sometimes favored. Hitler also did that," the
paper quoted her as saying.
Despite
her later denials, the widely reported comments cast a pall over
U.S.-German relations already at a low ebb over Berlin's refusal to
join an attack on Iraq.
The
scandal broke just days before Sunday's national election, in a heated
campaign that has been marked by strained relations between Berlin and
Washington, particularly over a possible war in Iraq.
Daeubler-Gmelin
is from Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's Social Democratic Party, with a
slight lead in the polls.
Schroeder
said he believed her version of events but her spokesman confirmed
that he demanded she hold Friday's press conference.
Daeubler-Gmelin
also denied the newspaper's report that she claimed the United States
had "a lousy justice system" and that if laws on insider
trading had been in force back in the 1980s when Bush was in the oil
business, "he would be in prison today."
Meanwhile,
the German conservative opposition called for Daeubler-Gmelin to
resign.
However,
she refused to step down at her press conference and said that said
she telephoned U.S. Ambassador in Berlin Dan Coats to clear up
any lingering "doubts".
"The quotes, most of them, don't match what I said," she
told the reporters, adding that "I didn't know that a journalist
was there at the time."
She
said she would be saddened if the affair "cast a shadow over good
German-American relations."
