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Europe
Blair/Putin talks reveal deep splits over Iraq
2003-04-30
Tony Blair's attempts to heal the diplomatic rift caused by the war against Iraq suffered a serious setback yesterday when he was forced to endure an extraordinary public lecture from Russia's president, Vladimir Putin. Speaking after talks held during a one-day trip to Russia, the Russian leader used a press conference to contradict Mr Blair's assertion that the war had been won. "The question is, where is Saddam? Where are his arsenals of weapons of mass destruction?" the Russian president asked. "Perhaps Saddam is still hiding somewhere in Moscow underground, sitting on cases of weapons of mass destruction, preparing to blow the whole thing up and kill hundreds of thousands of people. We do not know what the situation is." He added: "What we want is to ensure that there is no ambiguity and that the threat has been eliminated."
On TV, Putin did seem remarkably cheery. Does he know assurances as to Sammy's fate won't be possible for the coalition?
Mr Blair's trip coincided with France, Germany, Belgium and Luxembourg agreeing at a mini summit to set up an independent European armed force. The move appeared to be a clear threat to the supremacy of a US-dominated Nato, which Mr Blair strongly supports. Yesterday the Prime Minister repeatedly called for America, the EU and Russia to work together in a strategic partnership. At his joint press conference with the Russian president, Mr Blair said it would be "highly dangerous" if these rival powers failed to co-operate with each other.
Tony's fighting a losing battle here, I think. There's no common threat against both Europe and the U.S. to justify NATO. It's degenerating into a feel-good organization and a debating society. Its primary use in any future operations will be to allow member states to spread blame for things that go wrong...
But the news conference, which came towards the end of four hours of talks, revealed a series of deep splits between Russia and Britain over the future of Iraq. Mr Putin said it was impossible to know whether the people who possessed weapons of mass destruction had been killed or whether they had just gone into hiding. "Perhaps their plan is to transfer these weapons to terrorist organisations," he said. "We simply do not know. Until we get answers to these questions we cannot feel safe and secure." Mr Putin insisted that the United Nations should be involved in the search for weapons of mass destruction. "If something is found there, some empty barrels, then the UN inspectors could be summoned," he said. The inspectors could be protected by "blue helmet" soldiers working for the UN. He even offered to send servicemen from Russia to help.
Take the offer of troops. Let them wear Russian hats, though...
Mr Putin said that he wanted UN sanctions against Iraq to remain in place until the weapons of mass destruction issue was resolved, despite appeals from President George W Bush that they be lifted. He also called for the Oil for Food programme to continue under United Nations control.
Why? They need money to repair all those palaces?
The Prime Minister, who was accompanied by his foreign policy adviser, Sir David Manning, in what were described as frank talks with Mr Putin, is opposed to the Russian position on most of these issues. In the hope of improving relations with Moscow, Mr Blair announced that Mr Putin would make a formal state visit to Britain at the end of June. He said it would be the first official state visit by a Russian leader since 1870. But otherwise the Prime Minister, who looked uncomfortable at the news conference in Mr Putin's official residence, struggled to find points of agreement. "Our soldiers, who have fought and died in respect to this war in Iraq, cannot simply hand over Iraq to the sole charge of the UN while coalition forces are on the ground," he said.
Doesn't make any sense to me, either. We do the work and the UN reaps the benefit? Why?
He also insisted that what happened in Iraq would be the "first test" of whether the strategic partnership he was calling for between the US, the EU and Russia could be made to work. "I think it can be made to work but it requires goodwill, real vision and an acceptance of the strategic partnership," he said. "The alternative is a world where we break up into different poles of power, rivalling one another."
I think that's eventually coming. I don't think it's coming as fast as France expects it to come. And I'm not sure France is going to be one of the major players in the anti-U.S. pole.
But Mr Putin suggested that he was not prepared to accept a world order in which countries always had to follow the US. "If decisions are being made by just one member of the international community and with other members being required just to subscribe to those decisions, that is something we would not find acceptable," he said.
Did anyone say that? I didn't hear it. You made your choice to defend Saddam, and you found yourself at odds with the US and her allies. That was your choice.
Putin makes more sense than Chiraq does, though I think he's misinterpreting our position. At least I hope that's what's happening. There's a difference between differences of opinion and obstructionism. The feeling I've been getting is that Russia and Germany disagreed with the U.S. stance, but insofar as they could, they maintained a sort of neutrality between the U.S. and Iraq, except where they saw themselves protecting their interests. Chiraq actively took Sammy's side and acted as his ally, while professing to be ours. That's just my impression, from all that's gone on in the past six months, and I don't have access to the classified data to back that position up — but I think the press accounts support it. That's why I think the U.S./Britain and Germany/Russia will achieve a rapprochment, while relations between us and France and the mini-Frances will worsen.
Posted by:Bulldog

#17  Al Capone was nailed on tax evasion.
Posted by: Dishman   2003-05-01 00:08:03  

#16  ptah - more important to what? prudentially more important - perhaps. Though it could be argue a great many aspects of the situation were and are prudentially more important than WMD - eg transforming the political culture of the region. For the legal case, the actual WMD were central. Different resolutions (or more centrally, different post-war cease-fire agreement) perhaps - but I find it hard to imagine an April 1991 ceasefire agreement that bans Iraq from possesing scientific know-how, or incentives to build WMD.
Posted by: Liberalhawk   2003-04-30 23:36:29  

#15  "And it was up to Blix to state full cooperation, right? "

No it was not. UNSC simply stated that Iraq should cooperate, and authorized Blix to make reports to the UNSC. It did not require the Council to rely on Blix's judgement. Nor did it state that a second resolution was required before serious consequences would ensue.

Had Saddam actually cooperated, the US would not have invaded. We would have had to fall back on some plan B. However no one in the US expected that to happen, for a variety of reasons.
Posted by: Liberalhawk   2003-04-30 23:31:07  

#14  Anon, your postulated second cycle would have had one big difference: Saddam's scientists would have known more the second time around. They would have known what they would have needed, and would have avoided a lot of blind alleys.

Sorry, L.H., the Know-how of WMD is more important than the WMD itself, and because the resolutions targeted the physical WMD and not the knowhow or incentive, they were inherently flawed.
Posted by: Ptah   2003-04-30 19:46:14  

#13  "What would the U.S. actually have done IF Saddam had fully cooperated?"
Full cooperation would have been too risky for Saddam. It means he would have to have full trust in his staff. To stay in power he used murder, torture, fear... and not trust. If he HAD fully cooperated and disarmed, and even invited the US Marines to inspect, the minute he re-started his WMD programs, the cycle would have begun all over again: UN, sanctions, 12 years, Blix, Chiraq, war. (Well, maybe not the 12 years)
Posted by: Anonymous   2003-04-30 16:03:41  

#12  "Can you blame the millions of people demonstrating against the war that they had all this in mind?"
Well, yes. Firstly, they were not protesting the war, they were demonstrating against the US. A very small minority was actually concerned about this turning into a Vietnam, or worse. Those would have been legitimate concerns, and legitimate protests. But all you had to do was read the placards or interview the protestors. On CNN I saw a reporter ask a protestor why they were protesting, and the answer was that they were against US foreign policy. I would have loved to continue that conversation and ask them what specific policy they were against, and watch them choke.
Finally, I do not want to leave the impression that I disagree with what the US is doing, just that WMD isn't the primary concern among the Bush team... and rightly so. And no matter how dubious the other reasons for war would have been, getting rid of a murderous dictator and lifting the sanctions is good enough for me.
Posted by: RW   2003-04-30 15:24:57  

#11  Here is another thought. WMDs as a possibility were important to Saddam for rebellion control. It didn't matter if he had them or not, he had to say he had them in order to suppress rebellion. If he ever complied with 1441 then he would of had a rebellion.
Posted by: Anonymous   2003-04-30 14:40:09  

#10  liberalhawk, that doesn't answer my question: What would the U.S. actually have done IF Saddam had fully cooperated? And it was up to Blix to state full cooperation, right? We all agree that Saddam didn't fully (or even partially) cooperate. But could he actually have done so? Let's say he let all scientists go abroad with their "extended families" and these guys had said: Nope, no active programs, we're just researching better ways to make baby milk powder, then what?
The U.S. would NEVER have accepted Blix confirming that Iraq was in full compliance. It was never an option. And everybody involved knew it.
And everybody knew that the U.S. couldn't possibly feel THAT threatened by Iraq's elusive WMD. I agree with RW: The war was mainly fought for strategic reasons: Getting out of KSA, cornering Iran and Syria, sitting right in the middle of everything and control (not steal) the oil flow. Never could so much be achieved with so little. I think the U.S. knew quite well in what sorry state Iraq really was. And I'm rather convinced that Baghdad was bought, not conquered.
I remember the worst case scenarios flying around in fall 2002 (including mushroomed Baghdad, poisoned Tel Aviv, 100000s of casualties and a 2 trillion dollar bill). Can you blame the millions of people demonstrating against the war that they had all this in mind?
Posted by: True German Ally   2003-04-30 14:39:49  

#9  "Russia and Germany disagreed with the U.S. stance"
They did more than simply disagree, they failed to reign-in Chiraq. And according to TGA, that was because they weren't given a choice by the US. In the run-up to the war, all I saw were meetings between Chiraq-Schroeder-Putin. Schroeder and Putin had their chance, why didn't they take it?

Secondly, the issue of WMD and Iraq is what was fed for public digestion at the UN, and was a tool used by the US for trying to obtain global permission at the UNSC to go after Saddam. There were other reasons for going into Iraq, and in my opinion WMD was secondary to those. And yes, oil was one of them, but not for the reason the leftist goons would want you to think. I find it interesting that the US pulled out (somewhat) from Saudi Arabia now, shortly after the war, when the oil in Iraq is about to start flowing. Seems like they were itching to get out. Seems the US wants to rid itself of any dependance on the Soddies. And everyone in Rantburg knows the reason why.
Posted by: RW   2003-04-30 14:14:53  

#8  i must respectfully disagree with both ptah and TGA. at least as regards the legal case for war (for the prudential case i suppose i agree - hmm)
The legal case was based on UN resolutions, but ultimately rooted in the 1991 ceasefire agreements - in these Iraq forfeited rights to build weapons that other sovereign states possess (I note that while chemical weapons are banned under treaty, the sanction is embargo on the country's chemical industry, not regime change) IIRC the ceasefire documents referred to actual weapons or active programs to research and build them - not the mere possesion of sufficient knowledge and broad infrastructure.

I would agree that there is an element of red herringness about WMD now - 1. the immediate provacation to war was UNSC 1441, which required Iraq to actively cooperate - if Iraq failed to cooperate then the war was justified ("serious consequences") even if Iraq had no WMD - since we couldnt verify that due to Iraqs non-cooperation (Police: take that gun out of you pocket or I'll shoot. Thug: never, copper. Police: Geez, he's dead and all he had in his pocket was his wallet - i wonder why?) 2. I think there is evidence of terrorism connection sufficient to justify war. 3. Support of Iraqi people for the war effectively renders justification pointless, troubling though this may be to advocates of Treaty of Westphalia.

however the issue of finding WMD is still important - to US credibility on future issues - failure to find WMD (or at least to show evidence they were destroyed in run-up to war) would make us less believable whenever WMD come up in future arguments wrt other countries.
Posted by: liberalhawk   2003-04-30 13:18:02  

#7  Yah, it was supposed to be YUGO, not Hugo. erk.

Thanx for the comments, everyone!
Posted by: Ptah   2003-04-30 12:52:55  

#6  Hugo, Yugo... What's the difference as long as you are not considering buying French!

Great points, Ptah.
Posted by: Tom   2003-04-30 10:30:43  

#5  Ptah, I fully agree with your analysis. This was something I never understood about the whole thing. Why didn't Saddam give up the WMD he had years ago, ask for lifting of sanctions and when the money starts flowing again get his weapons back?
A sanctions-free Iraq would have had no much trouble to buy the stuff it needed and all the knowhow was there anyway.
Now the question is: If Saddam had WMD hidden and he had come clear, leading the UN inspectors to any place where a bottle of sarin was hidden, could he ever have satisfied the U.S.? No, because nobody could ever be sure that he didn't have some more, right?
Could he have dragged on the UN inspection process if he had been somewhat smarter? Maybe. His mistake was to say that Iraq didn't have any WMD. Had he said... well we got a bit left buried but please UN come and destroy it all... tough shit for the U.S. Yet it wouldn't have changed a thing, the invasion would have gone ahead as planned way before Bush addressed the UN. And Sammy knew that. But had Saddam played the UN a bit better, he would have given Tony Blair more trouble because visible evidence that the inspections "were working" would have strengthen the anti war stance in Britain (and even more in the rest of the world.
So why was the WMD issue chosen anyway? Because it was the only issue that could be played at the UN Security Council. As the Council wasn't giving in, it was made irrelevant (for this and further U.S. wars).
Red herring indeed. The catastrophic situation in Iraq would have made a more convincing case. But probably not a case that would have been decided in a few months.
Posted by: True German Ally   2003-04-30 10:29:33  

#4  Good analysis, Ptah, and it's consistent with our present emphasis on finding the people who know about the weapons, more than finding the weapons themselves.

One question, though: what the hell is a "Hugo"?
Posted by: Dave D.   2003-04-30 09:04:39  

#3  I have an article at my website, where I show that WMD is a red herring. Availability may be iffy due to Bellsouth meddling with my spiffy new third party SDSL connection, but keep trying.

Don't worry. It's not a liberal rant. I just wanted to explain why there's more to WMD than just WMD...
Posted by: Ptah   2003-04-30 08:41:16  

#2  If that's his concern, it's hard to see how maintaining UN economic sanctions on the people of Iraq- with Saddam no longer in power- could possibly be a rational way of addressing that concern.

No, this is simple greed: the threat of continued sanctions is intended to coerce the US and UK into giving him a piece of the economic action in post-war Iraq, and repayment of Saddam's pre-war debt.
Posted by: Dave D.   2003-04-30 07:51:35  

#1  Unless there's a translation error..
Putin's statements leave no doubt that he believes the weapons were there.
I get the feeling he's concerned about the Chechens getting their hands on something big.
Posted by: Dishman   2003-04-30 07:38:29  

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