EUROPE and the US
The leading lights of the US Defence Department always made it plain that disarming Saddam was a pretext for regime
change in Iraq. Yet that pretext was the basis of a massive American diplomatic offensive. Tony Blair explicitly told the
British people that disarming Saddam justified taking Britain to war. That argument was fraudulent". RH: The Bush
administration does not seem too aware of European opinion. In Europe, Donald Rumsfeld again bought up the vision
between the "Old Europe" and the "New Europe", referring primarily to Poland and to Romania. While these two
countries must have been flattered, if they had to choose between the US and Europe, they would certainly choose the
latter.
Ronald Hilton - 6/12/03
The conservative Sunday Telegraph of London is usually strongly pro-US, so I was surprised to read "I was silly to trust
America"by Max Hastings (6/1/03). See http://news.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/. Here is an excerpt: "Even by the standards
of the Bush Administration, last week was a remarkable one for diplomatic folly. Paul Wolfowitz, the Assistant Defence
Secretary, disclosed that the US wilfully exaggerated the threat of weapons of mass destruction, to rally support for an Iraq
war. Likewise, Wolfowitz's boss, Donald Rumsfeld, declared that he has little expectation of finding any WMDs. He then
launched a new round of sabre-rattling against Iran. So much for the gleeful banner under which President Bush greeted a
homebound American aircraft-carrier crew: "Mission accomplished".
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