- PARIS - Worried Europeans
are sending ever stronger signals to President George W. Bush that he needs
backing from the United Nations to secure their support for any strike
on Iraq.
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- As Bush hastens a military build-up that has left some
analysts thinking the assault could be as soon as a month away, the mood
in many European capitals is hardening.
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- Country after country are calling for Bush to give UN
weapons inspectors more time and discreetly telling him that, in the lack
of clear evidence that Saddam Hussein has tried to acquire weapons of mass
destruction, their public will oppose any strike on Iraq that fails to
carry UN backing.
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- Greece, which took over the rotating presidency of the
European Union on January 1, said it would ask the 15-nation bloc to adopt
a joint stance on preventing a war.
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- "Our desire and intention is that there should be
no war. We don't want a war," Greek Prime Minister Costas Simitis
said at the weekend. "But there is a procedure that has been decided
on for the next steps. The Security Council of the United Nations has taken
a decision to that effect."
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- The EU's foreign policy chief, Javier Solana, has warned
that in the absence of proof that Iraq holds banned weapons it would be
"very difficult to declare war".
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- French President Jacques Chirac said: "The use of
force is always a statement of failure and the worst of all solutions.
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- "We have tried to encourage a peaceful solution
from the start, in the belief that a military intervention should only
be envisaged if absolutely all other options fail, and of course only on
the decision of the UN Security Council."
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- German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder said UN resolution
1441, which sent weapons inspectors back into Iraq to vet its armament
programmes, "must be applied. We want to do everything we can to make
sure that this succeeds without military action".
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- British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Bush's strongest ally,
has emphasised his preference for UN backing for military action, although
he insisted yesterday that, whatever happened, Britain and the US would
not be deterred.
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- In a televised news conference in London, Blair said
he was sure that Iraq had chemical and biological weapons and these posed
a direct threat to British national security.
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- If any country put an unreasonable or unilateral block
on a UN resolution backing military action, "we have said we can't
be in a position where we are confined in that way. However, I do not believe
as a matter of fact that will happen", Blair said.
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- European governments are fighting a wave of opposition
among voters. Opinion polls say 58 per cent of British adults are not convinced
that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction, while in France, 77 per cent
of voters are against any strike.
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- Blair, meanwhile, is facing a potential revolt within
the ranks of his Labour Party. A former party chairman, Clive Soley, has
warned that if Blair failed to make a convincing case for a war on Iraq
he could face a repeat of the 1956 Suez fiasco, when then prime minister
Anthony Eden took Britain into a conflict without public support and was
kicked out of office as punishment.
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- After months of discreet silence, the Europeans have
suddenly gone public with their worries for several reasons.
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- The first is the realisation that the phoney war may
soon come to an end, for the Americans are rapidly preparing a hammer strike
and, contrary to the 1991 Gulf War, still do not have the "smoking
gun" to prove Saddam's villainy.
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- Some analysts say the offensive could take place as soon
as mid-February, after the haj pilgrimage to Mecca.
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- By that time, the Pentagon should have 150,000 military
personnel in the Gulf, and the British and US navies should have a taskforce
numbering scores of ships, including aircraft carrier battle groups and
marine assault ships. US troops and equipment stockpiles are already in
Kuwait and Saudi Arabia on Iraq's southern front, while Turkey, a Nato
member, is being pressured to let its land be a springboard for an attack
from the north.
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- But another factor that has stoked doubt is Bush's sense
of judgment.
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- Many European commentators warn that Bush risks dangerously
inflaming sentiment in Arab countries if he attacks Iraq yet does nothing,
as a counterpart, to force Israel to obey United Nations resolutions.
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- And the dramatic eruption of the crisis in North Korea
has caused some to ask why oil-rich Iraq, which apparently still lacks
weapons of mass destruction, is considered a bigger threat than a paranoid,
nuclear-armed but oil-less Pyongyang.
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- Some experts still say a war is not inevitable, but they
increasingly seem to be in the minority. A more common view is that of
Simon Serfaty of the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in
Washington, who says Bush considers he has no alternative to force and
does not really care if Europe backs him or not.
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- "There lies the difference between the Americans
and the Europeans," says Serfaty, "because this Administration
is absolutely convinced that danger is imminent."
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