-Caveat Lector-
http://truthout.org/docs_03/031403D.shtml
European Union in New Warning on Bush Go-It-Alone War
By Elaine Sciolino
New York Times
Wednesday 12 March 2003
In another call for the Bush administration to slow its march
toward war, the foreign relations head of the European Union warned
today that Europe might withhold money for the reconstruction of
Iraq if the United States waged war without the approval of the
Security Council.
"It will be that much more difficult for the E.U. to cooperate
fully and on a large scale also in the longer-term reconstruction
process if events unfold without proper U.N. cover and if the
member states remain divided," said Chris Patten, the European
Union's External Relations Commissioner.
Speaking during a debate in the European Parliament in
Strasbourg, the British official added that an American war
campaign without the legal support of the United Nations would do
enormous damage to the authority of the United Nations, the NATO
alliance and relations between Europe and the United States.
The specter of war has caused a deep and bitter split in the
15-country European Union the world's biggest aid donor with
Britain and Spain embracing the American call to war and France and
Germany calling for continued international weapons inspections
under United Nations auspices.
The heads of state of the European Union will meet for a
regularly scheduled meeting in Brussels next week and Iraq is
expected to dominate the agenda.
"In the past I have sometimes been accused of issuing a threat
of E.U. noncooperation if the United States chooses to proceed with
U.N. backing," he said. "That is not my point," he said. "I am
making, rather, a simple observation of fact: that if it comes to
war, it will be very much easier" to make a case for generosity "if
there is no dispute about the legitimacy of the military action
that has taken place."
Mr. Patten noted that the European Union's budget is already
"heavily committed," adding, "It is of the greatest importance that
if a war is waged in Iraq, the U.N. should authorize the decision
to attack."
Mr. Patten made his remarks during a debate in the European
Parliament in which deputies expressed their overwhelming
opposition to a war waged only by the Untied States.
The European Union would be more willing to spend money on
postwar reconstruction and relief aid in Iraq if the legitimacy of
the war was clearly authorized under a Security Council mandate.
The Bush administration has said that it is impossible to
predict the cost of postwar reconstruction. But Mr. Patten's
remarks follow an assessment made by the New York-based Council on
Foreign Relations that estimates the cost of reconstruction and
peacekeeping at $20 billion a year. The E.U. had so far earmarked
15 million euros ($16.5 million) in relief aid for Iraq this year.
Mr. Patten also questioned the Bush administration's assertion
that the overthrow of President Saddam Hussein of Iraq by war will
help combat terrorism and spread democracy in the Middle East.
"As a general rule, are wars not more likely to recruit
terrorists than to deter them?" he said. "It is hard to build
democracy at the barrel of a gun, when history suggests it is more
usually the product of long internal development in a society."
"What I'm absolutely sure about," he added, "is that to invade
Iraq, while failing to bring peace to the Middle East, would create
exactly the sort of conditions in which terrorism would be likely
to thrive."
And Mr. Patten joined a chorus of other European leaders in
criticizing the United States for failing to publish a
much-promised "road map" for Israeli-Palestinian peace drawn up
last year by the United States, the European Union, the United
Nations and Russia.
During the debate today, all of the principal parliamentary
groups underscored the need for Security Council authority to go to
war.
"Unilateral action would be a violation of the charter of the
United Nations," said the Socialist floor leader, Enrique Baron
Crespo. "An attack under these conditions would create fertile
ground for international terrorism."
The Liberal group leader, Graeme Watson, said: "It is claimed
in London, Washington and Madrid that war could be short, swift and
successful. With U.N. support this could indeed be the case. But
without it, in a conflict which divides the international
community, we could be on the brink of another Hundred Years' War
which could bring down regimes well beyond Iraq."
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