The
French and the Germans'
bad mistake in undermining
Colin Powell
By
Jonathan
Power
January 31, 2003
LONDON - The continental Europeans, Germany and France
in particular, made a grave tactical mistake last week in
making it clear to Washington that they felt the UN
inspections were working and that the inspectors should
be given a lot more time. They appear to have undermined
one of two people who have some chance of bending
President George Bush's ear on the subject of going to
war- Secretary of State Colin Powell. (The other is
British Prime Minister, Tony Blair.)
They should do some homework- and not depend on
filtered reports from advisors- and read for themselves
Powell's autobiography. Colin Powell's deepest roots are
not in Harlem where he was born but in Jamaica from
whence came his parents. He remains the quintessential
outsider. His music is calypso and reggae, not Motown and
soul; his favourite drink is Appleton's rum, not beer or
whiskey and comfort food for him is not chitin and
greens, but roast goat meat, plantains, peas and
rice.
Colin Powell when he looks at a problem looks through
both ends of the telescope. He sees the big picture with
his Washington eye, but also the little man's with his
Jamaican other eye- the stubborn pride of resisting being
humbled too casually by big-picture forces.
He is without doubt the most independent-minded man in
the current American establishment. When he accompanied
the then president, Ronald Reagan, to Moscow, to meetings
with Mikhail Gorbachev, he became one of the first to
believe Gorbachev's statements that he wanted to end the
Soviet Union's antagonistic relationship with America. He
was the first four-star military man to take a public
stand on the need to shrink the military establishment
and its budget.
Nevertheless, Powell is reported as being
"incandescent" at the new loud German and French stance.
And with good reason. Associates have made it clear that
he feels personally undermined to the point of losing his
leverage with the White House. It has been known for some
weeks what Hans Blix, the chief UN weapons inspector, was
going to say when he finally formally briefed the
Security Council on Monday (today). Besides arguing that
the inspectors needed more time, he concluded that thus
far Iraq had not cooperated sufficiently. Iraq's
declaration of December 7th, had failed to answer
questions about anthrax and nerve-gas programs and the
government has blocked private interviews with Iraqi
scientists and has placed unacceptable conditions on
surveillance over-flights. This is truly a damning
indictment.
There are two important points to be made. France and
Germany although they have long expressed their doubts
about war, are also committed publicly to the vigorous
implementation of Security Council Resolution 1441 that
mandates thorough inspections and the destruction of
Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. Second, if they have
serious reservations about the efficacy of a war and the
dangers of sparking terminal upheavals in the Muslim
world that could re-charge the batteries of the hard-line
fundamentalists, wobble the regime in Saudi Arabia and
destabilise nuclear-armed Pakistan, throwing it into the
arms of the Taliban-friendly militants, then they aught
to realize from circumstantial evidence that Powell is
their friend, not an antagonist, in this debate.
Mr Powell is never going to say this out loud today
but it is in his book that at the time of the first Gulf
War he was worried about similar destabilising issues way
back in 1991.
There is in fact only one way to avoid war. Mr Bush
will not be shifted on this whatever the allies say or do
or don't do. That is for Iraq to implement resolution
1441. It is in fact a reasonable request and fits exactly
with what the UN was set up to do when its first members
agreed its Charter in San Francisco in 1945, even though
one may wonder about the motives and hidden agenda of the
Bush administration on what led it at this particular
juncture to want to crack the whip.
Yet France and Germany have reduced Saddam Hussein's
incentive to comply with the Security Council resolution.
They have given him hope he can forestall a February or
March invasion by spinning the inspection process out at
least until the fall, when the temperature will again
start to fall in the desert and make fighting for an
American army more feasible. In our fast changing world,
Saddam may well reason that anything can happen in nine
months. Other crises, North Korea for one, may divert
America's attention.
Mr Powell is determined to avoid a war. If Iraq
complies and reveals to the inspectorate its obvious
stock of biological and chemical weapons and any efforts-
probably not so advanced- to make a nuclear weapon, he
probably believes he can persuade Mr Bush to call off the
attack, even if it leaves Saddam still in the saddle. And
if the war goes ahead Mr Powell wants to remain on the
inside track so he can make sure, as he did last time,
that Vice-President Dick Cheney doesn't succeed in
arguing for the use of nuclear weapons.
I can be reached by phone +44
7785 351172 and e-mail: JonatPower@aol.com
Copyright © 2003 By
JONATHAN POWER
Follow this
link to read about - and order - Jonathan Power's book
written for the
40th Anniversary of
Amnesty International
"Like
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