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

To: Neocon who wrote (113701)	9/2/2003 2:36:35 PM
From: E	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

"Hans complained a lot about the media campaign, some of the administration's efforts to put pressure on him." (itals mine) If the most powerful person on earth is engaged in a media campaign against one, one feels the pressure of the sharp public criticism (and of course one can never in such circumstances be absolutely positive one will be vindicated, one can only go on one's best judgment). (Blix was courageous, and chose to do that rather than yield to the pressure.) But... we won't agree on this. I believe the pressure and sharp public criticism was an attempt to intimidate Blix into backing U.S. and British assertions about Iraq's weapons programs, as the original article under discussion claims, and you think that there was no such intention on the part of the most powerful man on earth, but that he was merely discussing Blix's position on the merits with pressure being, heaven forfend, the last thing on his mind. (By "his mind," I mean the minds of those who act and speak for him, of course.) I had a foreign service job at one time. I did not serve at the pleasure of the Ambassador. The Ambassador had no authority over me. But believe me, if the American Ambassador was pissed at one, it made one nervous. And I'm talking about a dinky little Ambassador. The most powerful man on earth will have ways, one must assume, to make one sorry, if he so desires, in the fullness of time. Of course maybe Bush isn't that kind of person. Maybe he and his administration are noblesse oblige kinds of folks, who wouldn't get back at those who criticized, or frustrated their ends.