Spanish eyes glare at Rumsfeld
Fri 28 Feb 2003
FOREIGN STAFF
THE Spanish prime minister, Jose Maria Aznar, has urged George Bush, the US president, to muzzle his defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, to help win the battle for European support for a possible war with Iraq.
In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Mr Aznar said he stressed the great importance to Europe and the Middle East for Mr Bush to show visible progress soon on the Israel-Palestinian dispute, and discussed various initiatives to repair deeply-damaged US-European relations.
On Wednesday night, Mr Bush publicly renewed US demands that Israel re-energise the peace process and desist from building settlements on Palestinian land.
Mr Aznar, one of America’s staunchest allies on the United Nations Security Council, said it would help if Mr Rumsfeld kept quiet. "I did tell the president that we need a lot of Secretary of State Colin Powell and not much of Rumsfeld," he said, adding: "Ministers of defence should talk less."
"The more Powell speaks and the less Rumsfeld speaks, that wouldn’t be a bad thing altogether," he said.
Mr Rumsfeld recently compared Germany with Libya and Cuba over Bonn’s approach to Saddam Hussein.
thescotsman.co.uk |
