The New York Times
Iraq Debate Intensifies Within European Union and NATO
By BARRY JAMES
International Herald Tribune
ARIS, Feb. 13 — The deep divide over Iraq threatened to engulf the European Union as well as the North Atlantic alliance today after Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain demanded that a European Union summit meeting next week support a war, if necessary to uphold the authority of the United Nations.
Despite pressure from the United States and several of Washington's European allies, leaders in France, Germany and Belgium continued to block an agreement at NATO to send aid to Turkey, a NATO member, if it was attacked by Iraq in any coming war. The three countries say that NATO should not adopt any measures that indicate that war is inevitable and thereby prejudge any decision by the United Nations Security Council.
A formal meeting of NATO ambassadors was called off today, given the impossibility of breaking the deadlock before a report on Friday by the chief weapons inspectors, Hans Blix and Mohamed ElBaradei.
But even before the inspectors' report was delivered, Mr. Blair, in a letter to fellow European Union leaders, warned that time was running out for a peaceful solution.
"While we all of course regard military action as a last resort," Mr. Blair said, "we must make clear that no member state rules it out if needed to uphold the authority" of the Security Council.
However, unless the weapons inspectors produce startling new evidence of Iraqi arms violations or refusal to cooperate, the Security Council was not certain to vote in favor of war. Any of three of its permanent members — France, Russia and China — could exercise a veto, leaving it to the United States to invade Iraq without United Nations approval, if it decided to attack.
The German chancellor, Gerhard Schröder, who has staked his own political survival on an antiwar position, said the majority of the 15 members of the Security Council supported his view that the arms inspection team in Iraq should be given more time and resources.
"Together with France, Russia and other partners, the government is doing all it can for a peaceful resolution," he told the Bundestag, in Berlin. "That is possible, and we are fighting for that."
German officials suggested that the Security Council discussions could open the way to a solution of the NATO crisis as early as Saturday. Germany is torn between its relationship with France and concern that it may be isolated in NATO if it stands firm on Iraq. The dispute has been exacerbated by remarks made by Donald H. Rumsfeld, the United States secretary of defense, that Germany is in the same league as Cuba and Libya by failing to support the American confrontation with Iraq.
"It's beyond impertinent," the German defense minister, Peter Struck, said in Parliament. "It isn't acceptable. It is out of order. It is even un-American when you consider that fairness is practically an American virtue."
France wants to rid Iraq of any weapons of mass destruction it may possess by means short of war, such as tougher inspections backed up by United Nations troops and aerial inspections. French officials said signs that Iraq was willing to cooperate more readily argued in favor of giving the inspectors more time.
Greece called for next week's informal meeting — meaning that no formal decisions need be made — in an attempt to reach a semblance of joint thinking in an organization that is supposed to have a common foreign and security policy. But observers said that it was just as likely to highlight the division of the European Union into almost evenly matched camps for or against American policy on Iraq.
The European Union has invited the United Nations secretary general, Kofi Annan, to attend the summit meeting of the 15 European Union member countries. The 10 mostly pro-American candidate members in Eastern and Central Europe will not be attending.
The NATO rift surged into a full-blown crisis after Turkey invoked Article IV of NATO's founding treaty, claiming that it felt its territory was under threat and calling for a package of defensive measures, including the deployment of Patriot antimissile missiles, and chemical and biological protection units. The refusal of France, Germany and Belgium to support the request meant that "the alliance is breaking itself up because it will not meet its responsibilities," according to Secretary of State Colin L. Powell.
In fact, diplomatic observers said the Iraq crisis is threatening to undermine the credibility not only of NATO but also of the Security Council and the European Union, with some members of the Union openly exasperated with the French-led opposition to military action. For the British foreign secretary, Jack Straw, the division and prevarication is shifting the burden of proof from Iraq to the United Nations inspectors and sending Baghdad "the signal that defiance pays."
The rift in NATO is of particular concern to some of the alliance's smaller members, who look to collective security backed by the United States as their main pillar of defense. The Portuguese foreign minister said that what earlier seemed a manageable crisis is not threatening to spiral out of control, affecting the security of countries like his.
"Today the colors are of a darker shade of gray than they were yesterday," he said, "and they could become even darker." |
