US war planners lack professionalism: Belgian foreign minister
Tue Apr 1,12:25 PM ET Add World - AFP to My Yahoo!
BRUSSELS (AFP) - The US officials who planned the war in Iraq (news - web sites) "lack professionalism," Belgian Foreign Minister Louis Michel said in a newspaper interview published in Brussels, adding that he thought the real reason for the war was the United States' need to reassert its power after the attacks of September 11, 2001.
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"It's incredible to throw so much power into a war while hinting that the whole thing had been worked out in advance, when in fact it appears that things aren't so clear," Michel told the French-language newspaper La Libre Belgique.
Michel also denounced the widely different explanations given by the United States for invading Iraq on March 20, in an onslaught that failed to win the backing of the United Nations (news - web sites).
"First it was disarmament. Then it was liberating the Iraqis. Along the way, there was an attempt to show that the whole thing would solve the Middle East problem," he said.
On the real reasons for the war, the Belgian minister said he thought the United States was seeking to show that it could still hit back after the September 11 attacks.
"The real reason for this war is probably the desire of the United States to show that they still have a credible power of dissuasion. Striking Iraq to make an example of it," he said.
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