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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Nadine Carroll who wrote (36011)	3/22/2004 3:35:14 AM
From: LindyBill	Respond to of 793690

I guess that Carter is unhappy that no one has paid attention to him lately. Carter savages Blair and Bush: 'Their war was based on lies' By Andrew Buncombe in Atlanta - Independent News Jimmy Carter, the former US president, has strongly criticised George Bush and Tony Blair for waging an unnecessary war to oust Saddam Hussein based on "lies or misinterpretations". The 2002 Nobel peace prize winner said Mr Blair had allowed his better judgement to be swayed by Mr Bush's desire to finish a war that his father had started. In an interview with The Independent on the first anniversary of the American and British invasion of Iraq, Mr Carter, who was president from 1977 to 1981, said the two leaders probably knew that many of the claims being made about Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction were based on imperfect intelligence. He said: "There was no reason for us to become involved in Iraq recently. That was a war based on lies and misinterpretations from London and from Washington, claiming falsely that Saddam Hussein was responsible for [the] 9/11 attacks, claiming falsely that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. And I think that President Bush and Prime Minister Blair probably knew that many of the allegations were based on uncertain intelligence ... a decision was made to go to war [then people said] 'Let's find a reason to do so'." Before the war Mr Carter made clear his opposition to a unilateral attack and said the US did not have the authority to create a "Pax Americana". During his Nobel prize acceptance speech in December 2002 he warned of the danger of "uncontrollable violence" if countries sought to resolve problems without United Nations input. His latest comments, made during an interview at the Carter Centre in Atlanta, are notable for their condemnation of the two serving leaders. It is extremely rare for a former US president to criticise an incumbent, or a British prime minister. Mr Carter's comments will add to the mounting pressure on Mr Bush and Mr Blair. Mr Carter said he believed the momentum for the invasion came from Washington and that many of Mr Bush's senior advisers had long ago signalled their desire to remove Saddam by force. Once a decision had been taken to go to war, every effort was made to find a reason for doing do, he said. "I think the basic reason was made not in London but in Washington. I think that Bush Jnr was inclined to finish a war that his father had precipitated against Iraq. I think it was that commitment of Bush that prevailed over, I think, the better judgement of Tony Blair and Tony Blair became an enthusiastic supporter of the Bush policy". Mr Carter's criticisms coincided with damaging claims yesterday from a former White House anti-terrorism co-ordinator. Richard Clarke said that President Bush ignored the threat from al-Qai'da before 11 September but in the immediate aftermath sought to hold Iraq responsible, in defiance of senior intelligence advisers who told him that Saddam had nothing to do with the conspiracy. With an eye to November's presidential elections, Mr Bush sought on Friday to use the anniversary of the Iraq invasion to say that differences between the US and opponents of the war belonged "to the past". Speaking at the White House, he told about 80 foreign ambassadors: "There is no neutral ground in the fight between civilisation and terror. There can be no separate peace with the terrorist enemy." But in the US and Britain, and elsewhere, there is growing anger among people who believe the war in Iraq was at best a deadly distraction and at worst an impediment to the war against al-Qa'ida - diverting resources and energy from countering those groups responsible for attacks such as the train bombings in Madrid. Over the weekend millions of anti-war protesters poured on to the streets of cities around the world to call for the withdrawal of US-led troops from Iraq. It was estimated that in Rome - which saw the biggest crowds - up to one million turned out. Mr Carter, 79, has recently published a novel. The Hornet's Nest is centred on America's revolutionary war against the British. That period had many lessons for the present day, Mr Carter said. news.independent.co.uk

To: Nadine Carroll who wrote (36011)	3/22/2004 4:32:22 AM
From: LindyBill	Respond to of 793690

Pretty tough to sell our POV in Europe when our Diplomats there are selling us down the river. "The Scotsman." Diplomat reveals US regret over Iraq invasion GETHIN CHAMBERLAIN DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENT Key points • Doubts over attack on Iraq revealed by US sources • Remarks come on first anniversary of conflict • Admission that conflict has placed strain on US realtions with othet countries Key quote "If we had waited six months, maybe some of this could have been done more peacefully, maybe I would not be in this situation." - Lianne Seymour, widow of Royal Marine Ian Seymour Story in full THE United States regrets the political fall-out generated by the invasion of Iraq and some members of the administration believe the war should have been delayed to give diplomacy another chance, a senior American diplomat has revealed. Howard Perlow, minister for political affairs and the US’s number three at its embassy in London, said a year after the war, it was clear it had placed a strain on relations within NATO and with other permanent members of the United Nations Security Council. In an interview with The Scotsman, Mr Perlow said the US had no doubt it had done the right thing in taking military action to unseat Saddam Hussein, but conceded it might have been better to have given diplomacy more time. "We could have taken the extra step that might have obviated some of the later political rancour when we couldn’t get that second resolution," he said. He admitted there were reasons to question the decision to attack without waiting for a UN consensus. "You obviated it, you removed it, you removed the possibility and that has led to this year of great political confrontation," he said. Asked whether the US had any regrets about the way it had prosecuted the war and whether, with hindsight, it would have gone about it differently, Mr Perlow said: "I think probably it is fair to say there were voices within the administration that would have perhaps delayed just a little bit longer in order to have tried to form a security council consensus on military action. "That said, I think you would find in this administration very few regrets for what we have done. There may be some secondary issues, that is to say it put a tremendous amount of stress on NATO ... and it certainly created political stress within the P5 [permanent members] on the security council. Those things are not good developments, not happy developments - it’s not how you want to manage a major relationship." thescotsman.scotsman.com

To: Nadine Carroll who wrote (36011)	3/22/2004 10:50:24 AM
From: LindyBill	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793690

Patterico runs a "LA Times" watch blog. He has the same reaction as you and I. The "Moral Authority" of Hamas Founder The sub-head of this L.A. Times news analysis on the death of Hamas founder Sheik Ahmed Yassin reads: The Hamas cleric had a moral authority that motivated many to give their lives to kill others. Just read that to yourself out loud a few times. What is going on in the brain of a headline writer who praises the "moral authority" of the head of an organization which boasts about its acts of mass murder?

To: Nadine Carroll who wrote (36011)	3/22/2004 11:56:30 AM
From: LindyBill	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793690

Roger Simon Blog - Good Marksmanship! The assassination of Sheik Ahmed Yassin made me reflect on my position on capital punishment, although only briefly because this is a position (there's one at least!) I haven't wavered on much for many years. I oppose capital punishment in general with one important exception, politically motivated serial killers. These people even when imprisoned for life are a serious threat to murder again. They have too many adherents all too willing to break them out of jail. (Yassin himself was essentially coerced out of prison in a controversial prisoner swap to return to Gaza and instigate a wave of suicide bombings.) Also, the assassination of such people is wholly justifiable. They are you adversaries in a declared/undeclared war. In Yassin's case, of course, it was totally declared. He spoke openly of the destruction of Israel on a daily basis and acted upon it. The characterization of Yassin as an impotent old man by such venues as the BBC and the Evening Standard is hypocritical nonsense (actually worse than that, but I don't feel like getting into it now). If a leader of such a nature had been sitting in another country sending waves of bombers into England blowing up buses they would have killed him in a heartbeat were they able. I notice too that British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw is calling the assassination "unacceptable, unjust." I wonder what he would have called Clinton's attempt to assassinate Bin Laden with those cruise missiles. I call it "bad marksmanship."