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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: maceng2 who wrote (38982)	8/20/2002 3:49:57 PM
From: maceng2	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

US "ASSUMES" SUPPORT OF POODLE BLAIR (I was just looking up the British "gutter press" for another story when I found this....pb) Tony Blair's status as George Bush's poodle was dramatically underlined today when a top US general said British support for an American invasion of Iraq is "assumed". Former Nato Supreme Commander General Wesley Clark said Americans would find it "shocking" if Blair did not toe the President's line on Iraq. "Tony Blair's behaviour since September 11 has left Americans automatically assuming he will back any decision taken by George Bush," he said. "The support of Britain is assumed. I think it would be shocking if Britain did not go along with the United States, whatever President Bush's decision might be. He added the American people had not even considered the possibility that Britain would not be part of an invasion of Iraq. "Prime Minister Blair has been so incredibly supportive of the United States that I think it hasn't really penetrated popular understanding in the United States that there is some possibility that the UK wouldn't be there with us," he said. And the General said hawks in Washington privately admitted that Iraq was no threat to the United States. He said they had been lobbying for an attack against Saddam Hussain before September 11. Disclosing high-level thinking at the Pentagon General Clark, who oversaw the bombing of Serbia, exposed the Bush administration's obsession with Saddam. He divulged: "There are some in the administration who have always felt that military power should be used to eliminate Saddam Hussein. "Secondly, those who favour this attack now will tell you candidly, and privately, that it is probably true that Saddam Hussein is no threat to the United States. "But they are afraid at some point he might decide if he had a nuclear weapon to use it against Israel." General Clark said war in the Gulf is probable, but not yet certain, although Bush's rhetoric had left him little room for manoeuvre and may force him into a military conflict "War is likely, it is probable. It is not 100 per cent absolute. "It is going to be very difficult to prevent war if the covert action doesn't work. If an international consensus doesn't come together I think it is going to be very difficult for him to find another course of action," he said. General Clark also argued for other methods to displace Saddam saying: "You can get a strategically decisive result without having to use strategically decisive and destructive military power if you bring in the elements of the international law and the full diplomatic weight of the international community. "If we were able to do that in Iraq we would have a much better result of not just in taking down Saddam Hussein's regime but in controlling proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, in preventing the inflammation of the Arab world and in dealing with the aftermath in Iraq." BLAIR'S LAWYERS TELL HIM IRAQ WAR IS ILLEGAL (see link) mirror.co.uk