Bill's Comment Page

The Iraqi crisis and the continuing differences in strategy between the United States and certain of its so-called allies, such as France and Germany

It appears that not all the 'allies' are yet persuaded that action to remove the threat of Saddam Hussein's Iraq is necessary in the very near future. France and Germany are apparently discussing measures to send large numbers of additional inspectors to Iraq, whilst insisting that the UN inspectors require more time (a great deal more time?) to carry out their duties. They have also, it seems, declined to allow 'planning' to go ahead for the defence of Turkey (under the mutual-defence agreements which form part of the NATO framework).

The BBC reports this relatively 'neutrally' (that's a charitable way of putting it) emphasising the strong 'pro-peace' stance of Germany's Joska Fischer, whereas the UPI (perhaps predictably) adopts a rather more rigorous approach, emphasising Donald Rumsfeld's 'fury' at the attitude of certain of the European countries.

One may laugh at Rumsfeld for some of his verbal 'innovation', but the man is no fool, and in a difficult situation I think I would prefer to listen to the hard-nosed, but intellectually robust, arguments of Rumsfeld and our own Tony Blair. I'm a committed pro-European, in favour of greater EU-integration and all that goes with it, but recent developments over some EU members' policies concerning how to deal with Saddam Hussein are indeed testing these views. It is indeed welcome that a number of the soon-to-be members of the EU, who suffered for years under Soviet tyranny, are far more willing than some of the softer Western European allies to face up to this difficult situation.