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Politics : The Donkey's Inn -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Mephisto who wrote (3028)	2/28/2002 10:50:05 PM
From: Mephisto	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 15516

Iraq? Not so fast Tuesday, February 19, 2002 - Print Edition, Page A18 They must have spiked the water with spine-stiffener in Moscow. Or did they give out grit with the gewurztraminer in Berlin? Whatever the reason, Jean Chrétien has put a fair expanse of turf between himself and the evil-bashing excesses of George W. Bush. We hope he maintains the distance. The problem is President Bush's insistence on hinting at military action against Iraq in retaliation for supporting terrorism, or producing weapons of mass destruction, or both. We have previously pointed out the dangers inherent in repeatedly raising this threat -- to say nothing of actually carrying it out -- in the absence of clear evidence linking Iraq to the attacks of Sept. 11 or the al-Qaeda terror network. We now welcome Prime Minister Chrétien to the ranks of those willing to remind Mr. Bush that no one has written him a blank cheque on the antiterrorism account. There is no doubt that Iraq, under Saddam Hussein, tried in the past to develop nuclear, chemical and biological weapons, and failed to persuade UN inspectors that all its programs had been shut down. But as Mr. Chrétien said on Thursday in Moscow: "The question of the production of unacceptable armaments in Iraq is a problem that is under the authority of the United Nations, and it is completely different than the problem of terrorism." He and Russian President Vladimir Putin urged the United States to show restraint, and Mr. Chrétien added the eminently reasonable forecast that unilateral action against Iraq would "go nowhere." This got the attention of Washington, in the person of Mr. Bush's national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice. She tracked down Mr. Chrétien's senior foreign-policy adviser, Claude Laverdure, in Moscow. Exactly what, she asked, did the Prime Minister say? To hear Mr. Laverdure tell it, he mollified Ms. Rice with a reading of the notes he had taken while Mr. Chrétien was speaking. So far, so good. But Mr. Chrétien returned to the subject on Sunday in Berlin, telling reporters once again that Iraqi weapons programs were one thing and the UN- and NATO-sanctioned campaign against terrorism was another. "We are with [the United States] on terrorism," he said, "and terrorism is in Afghanistan." Senior cabinet ministers are whistling similar tunes. "Before you invade a sovereign country, there has to be a reason for it," Foreign Affairs Minister Bill Graham said last week. Yesterday it was Deputy Prime Minister John Manley's turn: "We will not intervene in another country without at least an international legal framework." It would be better, of course, if the Liberals were more principled and consistent in such matters. We wish more of them had remembered international legal frameworks as they stumbled around earlier this month looking for a policy on prisoners of war. We wish we could be sure they will protect Canada's interests adequately as they enter into new defence and security arrangements. We were not among those who thought the Prime Minister weak-minded in the aftermath of Sept. 11. We wish he had not felt the need to counter that perception by, among other things, approving too quickly an antiterrorism law that went too far. But on Iraq, his instincts are serving us well. "Real friends," we said in September, "do not nod their heads compliantly when a comrade takes, or contemplates, rash action. Rather, they offer sober second thought." That is what Mr. Chrétien and his team are now doing with their friends in Washington. We applaud them for it. globeandmail.ca