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Politics : DON'T START THE WAR -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Just_Observing who wrote (18219)	3/9/2003 5:39:09 PM
From: Bald Eagle	Respond to of 25898

RE:during the 78-day air campaign in Kosovo No UN backing for that US campaign, but where were the "anti-war" demonstrators?

To: Just_Observing who wrote (18219)	3/9/2003 5:51:18 PM
From: PartyTime	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 25898

No need for war, PM tells news program Canadian Press Ottawa ? A war against Iraq over banned weapons is not necessary because the U.S. has already won, Prime Minister Jean Chrétien told ABC Television in an interview broadcast Sunday. He said credit should go to U.S. President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair for putting pressure on the Iraqi regime by moving 250,000 troops into the Gulf region. "The president has won," Mr. Chrétien said in an interview taped Saturday for the ABC news program This Week with George Stephanopoulos. "I have no doubt about it. He won." The interview at the Prime Minister's home in Shawinigan, Que., came as the United Nations Security Council considered a compromise British proposal that would require Iraqi President Saddam Hussein to fully comply with UN disarmament Resolution 1441 by March 17 or face military action. Mr. Chrétien welcomed the British proposal, saying that while "a couple of more weeks could help," it's close to what Canada first called for several weeks ago. Canada has suggested a series of clear objectives with a March 28 deadline for Mr. Hussein to met them. The Prime Minister said Mr. Bush has created a situation where Mr. Hussein is "trapped and he cannot move." "He [Mr. Bush] has troops at the door and inspectors on the ground; planes flying over and [Mr. Hussein] cannot do anything; and he started to destroy missiles," Mr. Chrétien said. "There's no nuclear danger there." "We don't know exactly what's left. But again, he has moved. It's because the Americans moved strong troops there; otherwise probably nothing would have happened." "I'm telling you that if I were in his boots, I would be shaking." U.S. National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice rejected Mr. Chrétien's rationale, saying Saddam has not been put in a box. "The problem with the notion of containment is that, first of all, it isn't working," Ms. Rice said on the same program. "And, secondly, what about the Iraqi people? Are we going to keep the Iraqi people in a perpetual state of isolation from the international community?" Ms. Rice said it's no secret that since 1998 "the United States has believed that regime change is a necessity because he isn't going to disarm." But Mr. Chrétien, while suggesting Canada might be amenable to a peacekeeping role in post-war Iraq, repeated his opposition to making the overthrow of Mr. Hussein's government a necessary part of any military intervention. "The question of a change of regime is something else," he said. "It's something that I'm not very comfortable with...because, where do you stop? You do that there and why not elsewhere?" Mr. Chrétien said he was "talking in terms of disarmament" when he declared the Americans winners in Iraq. Regime change is not the debate at the UN, he pointed out. And acting without UN sanction "would be quite bad," he said. "The Americans are the only super-power now. You have to really be realistic about it, that makes some people nervous. Some do not want to take your word too easily, they want to ask questions and they are afraid to have only one super power, that it's dangerous for them." He said acting unilaterally sets a dangerous precedent. "China might say: 'We have a problem somewhere; we don't like the regime and we're going to change the regime.' That's why it's dangerous." Mr. Chrétien said the Americans "won the Cold War, without one tank, one missile and losing one life; there is no more USSR." But Ms. Rice said Mr. Hussein can't be kept in check indefinitely. "He's still making demands on the United Nations with more than 200,000 troops in his neighbourhood." She said illegal financing to Mr. Hussein's regime has risen to more than $3- billion (U.S.) annually from $500-million, with most of it going toward illegal weapons programs and worldwide terrorism rather than to his own people, who have been subject to UN sanctions since the Gulf War in 1990-91. globeandmail.ca