Western European News Digest
Tony Benn Goes to Baghdad, Interviews Saddam
Former British Minister and Labour Party Parliamentarian Tony Benn, Lyndon LaRouche recently praised for his unique moral role in British politics, flew off to Baghdad last week, on an extraordinary mission to head off the war, a Labour Party-linked London insider told EIR. He said: "He will see Saddam, make an assessment of the situation, and try to help develop a counter-movement to the push for war. This is being done, after urgent discussions with leading Labour figures and others, who are trying to figure a way out."
According to subsequent news reports, Benn taped a rare interview with Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, and the interview will be played later this week.
France, Germany Emphasize UN Role in Reacting to Bush State of the Union
French President Jacques Chirac and German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder on Jan. 29 officially welcomed President George W. Bush's announcement in his Jan. 28 State of the Union address, that the U.S. will present "evidence" of Iraqi flouting of UN Security Council Resolution 1441 on Feb. 5; the two leaders greeted the announcement as confirming the United Nations as the primary medium for decisions concerning the Iraq issue.
The Foreign Ministers of France and Germany, Dominique de Villepin and Joschka Fischer, issued similar statements, also reaffirming that there was no military automaticity to the Feb. 5 UN Security Council session. A spokesman for Fischer added that in the view of the German government, "any military operation needs the legitimization of the United Nations Security Council."
The Russian Foreign Ministry reaffirmed Jan. 29 that the Bush announcement had not altered Moscow's view that evidence that would justify military response against Baghdad, still has not been presented, and whether the new "evidence" to be presented by the U.S. is of a different nature, remains to be seen. Russia prefers, as before, non-military solutions to the Iraq problem, but it also insisted that Iraq must not cause any problems for UN weapons inspections.
'Declaration of Eight' Aims To Split Europe Over Iraq Issue
There appeared Jan. 30 in Spain's El Pais, the Times of London, several other leading European dailies, and the Wall Street Journal, an ominous "Declaration of Eight" voicing concern that the "bond between the United States and Europe" could be damaged by the ongoing controversy over the Iraq issue.
Signing the open letter were the leaders of Britain, Spain, Italy, Portugal, Denmark, Hungary, Poland and Czechia.
Borrowing partly from Anglo-American propaganda for the alleged cause of "defending Western values" against the regime of Iraq, the eight leaders wrote that Europe owes its liberation from the two tyrannies of Nazism and Communism, as well as peace and freedom after two world wars, to the United States. Therefore, "the transatlantic relationship must not become a casualty of the current Iraqi regime's persistent attempts to threaten world security," the letter stated, urging "unity and cohesion," and implicitly criticizing France and Germany for taking a different approach.
The letter was undoubtedly drafted in support of U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's line that "New Europe"unlike France and Germany, which Rumsfeld contemptuously called "Old Europe"backs the cause against Saddam Hussein, but the letter did not call for military steps, directly. It cited UN Resolution 1441 as the main way to disarm Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, but also insisted that the opportunity to avoid war rests with Saddam Hussein alone, and that no dictator can be allowed to "systematically violate those resolutions."
The Greek government criticized the letter as an initiative not consulted on with Greece, which is currently president of the European Union, and therefore as being unauthorized to speak in the name of Europe as a whole. The Greeks hold that the Jan. 27 Brussels declaration of all 15 EU Foreign Ministers in support of Iraq inspections, is the only authorized document.
Greek Prime Minister Costas Simitis said the document "does not contribute to a common approach." According to an unnamed Greek official, who was enraged, "Prime Minister Simitis had talks with Blair and Aznar in the last few days, and nobody informed him" of the initiative. He learned about it from third parties only on Jan. 30.
Greek Parliament President Apostolos Kaklamanis said: "The ideal of the European Union suffered a severe blow.... This war is undermining the course of Europe toward its integration." And, despite Simitis' caveats, he himself added that: "The way that was followed [by the letter] shows a lack of consultation. There was no information. This way, we are not helping Europe have a strong voice in the world."
The letter was clearly designed to smash European anti-war resistance. As Britain's Independent headlined its coverage, "Iraq split redraws the map of Europe," and other press echo this line.
The declaration was put together, according to Jutlands Posten, as U.S. envoys travelled through European capitals in recent weeks, exerting pressure on governments to stand up against Paris and Berlin. Debate in the Danish government, the Posten reports, is now raging, since the Prime Minister and Foreign Minister signed onto the text, without having consulted with the foreign policy commissions of their parties.
As the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung pointed out, what the governments signed does not reflect what the people think; in Poland, two-thirds of the population oppose war, and a similar situation exists in Hungary and the Czech Republic. In the latter, President Vaclav Havel signed the statement even though the government opposes war, as the Prime Minister has reiterated. A UN-associated source told EIR that the situation in Spain is also split, with the population against war.
Wolfowitz, Perle Pound France and Germany with Propaganda Shells
In an article published by the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung Jan. 30, U.S. Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz wrote that inspectors cannot do their job, as Saddam is out-flanking them and cheating the world public; that all the inspections, sanctions and containment of the past 12 years have not prevented Iraq from working on producing illegal arsenals of weapons of mass destruction. The decision whether there is voluntary disarmament in Iraq, or use of force against Iraq to achieve disarmament, rests solely with Saddam Hussein, Wolfowitz wrote. A similar piece by Wolfowitz also appeared in the Russian daily Izvestia daily Jan. 30.
Meantime, in a Jan. 30 interview with Sueddeutsche Zeitung, Defense Policy Board chief Richard Perle declared France and Germany irrelevant and irresponsible, but acknowledged that this has less to do with Iraq than with the "fact" that both nations have been seeking to reduce their dependency on the United States, since the fall of the Iron Curtain. Perle argued that the U.S. would make a total fool of itself in the eyes of the world, were it to halt the ongoing mobilization for war against Iraq; therefore, he said, he thinks the war will come, no matter what the French and Germans say. And, should the United Nations not side with the U.S., it would become as irrelevant as the League of Nations did in the 1930s when it failed signally to contain Hitler, Perle warned.
Leading Military Historian Strongly Opposes War
Martin van Creveld, the Dutch-born Israeli military historian, was interviewed on Deutschlandfunk in Germany Jan. 30. The interviewer asked, "You are not exactly known as being very critical of American policy, but you have recently been quoted, opposing this war against Iraq. Do you oppose this war?" Van Creveld responded: "Yes, I do. I haven't seen anything which would justify a war. Iraq, like North Korea, is in such a pitifully wrecked state, that its force potential has so declined in recent years, that it does not represent a threat. There is no reason for a preemptive attack on Iraq."
The questioner then noted that he had recently written an article for Die Welt with the headline, "Is Washington Going Bonkers?" Does this represent his view? Van Creveld responded: "Yes, I'm very concerned. I get the impression that America, under George W. Bush, is developing a new national hobbybombing. I have an image of Bush waking up in the morning, going over to a map, putting a pin onto the map, and saying, 'Let's bomb this country.'
"Let me repeat once again, I don't see any justification for attacking Iraq just now."
Germany Wants Differentiated Approach to Iraq
In a series of radio and newspaper interviews at the end of January, Kerstin Mueller, Assistant Foreign Minister of Germany, has stated that 1) "unlike some other governments," the German government has provided its own foreign intelligence findings on Iraq to the UN inspectors from the start of their latest mission; 2) Germany insists that no decision on war be taken unless the policy for the postwar period is clarifiedon that, the Germans have repeatedly asked the Americans and others, but have not received any answer at all, in recent weeks; 3) Germany too is worried about the proliferation of weapons of mass destructionbut there are "also other states in the region" and "outside the region," in addition to Iraq, that do have WMD capacities, and they are not target of any war threats. Germany insists that there be no double standards, on proliferation issues.
As for media reports (taken up eagerly by pro-Rumsfeld partisans in Germany) about an alleged secret dossier of Germany's foreign intelligence (BND) about Iraq that is said to corroborate the U.S. charges, the German government has declared it is not aware of such a dossier, and it should be the first to know about such things; the Frankfurter Allgemeine daily added that the so-called secret dossier can be read on the BND's website; the Sueddeutsche Zeitung daily added that among the BND experts, most of the so-called evidence cited by the media is not sound, because it originates with Iraqi exiles who are not really trustworthy.
Italian Central Banker: Iraq War Would Damage World Economy
Speaking to a conference of foreign exchange traders in Agrigento Jan. 25, Italian Central Banker Antonio Fazio said, "An armed conflict has consequences hard to assess in their extent, affecting raw material and energy prices, disrupting normal financial and trade relationships at global level ... [and] increasing the possibilities of new terror attacks."
Fazio also polemicized against the government-supported official statistics on inflation, saying that "empirical analyses show that inflation as perceived by consumers is clearly superior" in accuracy to the measurements by the official agency, Istat.
In recent weeks, consumers' associations had attacked Istat, charging that inflation has grown in some cases as high as 30%. So last week, Istat announced a change in the inflation market basket for the alleged purpose of better measuring inflation. Magically, the January rate is 0.1 points down from December: 2.7% instead of 2.8%.
Organized-Crime Link in Alleged Terror Plot in Italy?
Italian police arrested 28 Pakistani nationals in Naples Jan. 30, after they found in their flat 1.5 kilos of explosives and plans to kill British Defense Chief Admiral Sir Michael Boyce, along with maps showing U.S. military targets, and addresses and telephone numbers of numerous Islamic terrorists around the world. Police were alerted by an informant. Apparently, very few people knew that Sir Michael was expected in Napleseven the anti-terror police had not been informedindicating that the alleged terrorists had inside tracks of information.
However, what is strange is that the 28 Pakistanis had lived for eight months in a flat belonging to the most famous organized-crime (Camorra) family in Naples, the Giulianos. In the past, Carmine Giuliano, one of the capo dei capi (boss of all bosses), had lived in the flat, before he became a "pentito" (turned state's evidence) under the Italian Witness Protection Program.
The Naples Camorra has known historical ties with intelligence and NATO networks, making the situation rather suggestive.
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