By Claire Trean
Le Monde14 January, 2003
Is a war against Iraq inevitable? For the last few days, European governments appear increasingly reticent about such an offensive. Public opinion is strongly opposed, in Germany, in France, but also in Great Britain, the country closest to the United States. Those in charge all emphasize the necessity of allowing the process of inspection to proceed through its term. Furthermore, the chief inspectors ask for several more months to complete their mission. Monday, George Bush's spokesperson promised that the inspectors will have "the time to do it." This attitude of the Europeans has not, however, lead to a common position within the Security Council. The Germans, the French, and the British still have significantly different approaches.
While the United States masses its troops in the Gulf to be ready by mid-February for a possible intervention in Iraq, European opinion tolerates this eventuality is ever less. Anxiety has reached a new peak, like that of last summer before the UN was involved in the development of this crisis. But the reasons to attack Iraq are today even less obvious. What is the link with terrorism? Where are the proofs of Iraq's rearmament? Have the UN Inspectors been prevented from accomplishing their mission? Why Iraq and not Korea? These questions are feeding the anti-war camp.
The last public opinion poll in the UK, the country closest to the United States' position, was diffused Monday on ITV and shows a growing skepticism (58% of Britons questioned did not believe in a threat presented by Iraqi weapons of mass destruction) and a reinforcement of the anti-war camp: 32% declare themselves opposed even with UN approval.
In France, according to the polls from the beginning of January, 76% of those questioned according to the IFOP, 77% according to Ipsos, declare themselves opposed to any military intervention, even with a UN green light.
A certain political nervousness everywhere reflects the growing anti-war sentiment. In Madrid the parties of the left are beginning to demand-up until now without success- a parliamentary debate on what Spain's position will be before the Security Council. In France, a half sentence from Jacques Chirac last week about the necessity to "be ready for any eventuality" was sufficient to unleash the press and the voices of all parties. The President, his entourage emphasizes, has said nothing other than what he has said since Sept. 9, which is that to avoid war, one must not exclude the possibility of having to make war.
In Germany, a half-sentence from UN ambassador Gunther Pleuger, which was nothing more than an explanation of UN Resolution 1441, released a tempest among the Greens and the Social Democrats and obliged Gerhard Schroder to reaffirm that Germany "will do everything to avoid a war" and to reaffirm also and as clearly as he had in the fall, that, whatever happened, Germany would not participate.
In Great Britain, the government, forcing itself to disarm a growing protest, including within the ranks of Labor, has given itself over the last few days to acrobatic variations in tone. Last week, after the gaffe of Foreign Affairs Minister Jack Straw, who publicly estimated that the probability of a war had receded "from 60 to 40%", after the declarations of Development Minister Claire Short which in no way hid her hostility to an armed intervention, Tony Blair seems to have thought himself obliged to reduce the level of tension by boosting the UN mission in Iraq and declaring that it needed time. Monday, he hardened his tone towards Saddam Hussein as a necessity of coherence, given that he also was dispatching troops to the Gulf.
While the Anglo-American armada assembles in the region and most implicated European leaders allow it to be known discretely that they will not refuse logistical collaboration with the Americans, all are joined these last days in proclaiming almost with a single voice that the war is not a reality.
The leaders all repeat in a refrain the statements of the UN inspectors who demand more time, as did Monday Mohamed El Baradie, the Director of the International Atomic Energy agency (IAEA), upon his departure from the Quai d'Orsay. "We still need several months to complete our mission," he said. Hans Blix, the Chief Inspector, recalled the same day that the calendar of inspections could be drawn out for a year and that, for him, the next real engagement is at the end of March when he must make a report to the UN on "those tasks which Iraq must complete in the area of disarmament."
They continue to reiterate that the intermediate report which the inspectors will present to the Security Council January 27 does not represent an expiration date. And everyone, even the Americans, echo them: "President Bush thinks that it is important for the inspectors to do their work and to have the time to do it" stated the President's spokesman, Ari Fleisher, disclaiming the idea that a countdown had begun.
The surge of anti-war opinion, the trust in the UN mission reaffirmed by the leaders, the fact that Iraq up until now has not really transgressed, is all insufficient nevertheless to create the basis of a durable consensus in Europe. The Greek Prime Minister, whose country presides at the European Union, would have liked the EU, represented by four countries out of fifteen on the Security Council while Spain and Germany are among the non-permanent members, to present a single position.
But there is no consensus, notably on the question of whether there must be a Security Council vote to unleash a military operation, should Iraq be found at fault. Jacques Chirac has let Costas Simitis know that he would be in favor of a coordination of the Europeans in the Security Council "to the extent possible", but that the fundamental positions had not, in spite of all, become "superimposable".
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