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IRAQ: Europe Growing Uneasy over Alliance with U.S.
By Julio Godoy
PARIS, May 13, 2004 (IPS) - European officials seem agreed that the abuse of Iraqi
prisoners by U.S. and British forces rule the two countries out of an
international
peace initiative. But they stop short of considering a European policy
independent of the United States.
At the least the pictures of abuse and torture of Iraqi prisoners have further
undermined the already weak European backing for the war and occupation.
Earlier supporters of the United States are now in withdrawal mode.
Leader of the opposition Christian Democratic Union in Germany Angela
Merkel who had strongly backed the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq last year said this
week that the images of torture "put the credibility of democratic values at risk."
The support her party gave to a U.S. invasion lost it the elections in October
2002.
Merkel's criticism of U.S. conduct in Iraq is seen as a first step in distancing
her
party from the United States.
Members of the ruling Social Democratic Party (SPD) who supported the
United States are also beginning to step back from Washington. The torture
photographs have "permanently damaged the international reputation of the
United States," the right-wing foreign policy expert with the SPD parliamentary
group Hans-Ulrich Klose said in a statement.
"I am not sure that the United States will ever again be capable of acting
internationally as a superpower that commands respect," Klose said. If the
instances of torture are a part of systematic procedure, Germany's relations
with
the United States should be "reconsidered intensively."
This is the closest a European official has come to a call for a European
foreign policy that is run independent of the United States.
German foreign minister Joschka Fischer asked the United States during a
visit
to Washington this week to restore its "moral leadership" by carrying out a full
investigation of the Iraqi prison abuse scandal.
The French opposition to the war stands vindicated even more, and French
leaders are determined to keep their distance from the Iraq mess. "What we
have seen and learnt (about the abuse of Iraqi prisoners) is shocking and
dishonourable," French foreign minister Michel Barnier said. Only a legitimate
Iraqi government can offer a way out of the "present tragedy", he said.
After a "real, sincere transfer of sovereignty" an interim government must
supervise free elections in January next year, Barnier said. That government
could authorise use of a multinational military force replacing the present
coalition, he said.
But Barnier declared that France will not send troops to Iraq even if the
United
Nations replaces the U.S.-British coalition. France would at most train the Iraqi
police, renegotiate the country's foreign debt and assist a new government
build
relations with Europe, he said.
In Poland new Prime Minister Marek Belka is up against increasing pressure
from the public and his own coalition partners who oppose Polish participation
in the coalition force in Iraq. They want a timeline for withdrawal of Polish
troops.
Belka is not giving in. "The withdrawal of our 2,400 soldiers from Iraq wouldn't
bring us honour," he said in a statement.
Belka, in office only since May 2 after his predecessor Leszek Miller quit, has
the backing of President Aleksander Kwasnieski. "The Polish troops will stay in
Iraq until a certain order reigns," Kwasnieski said during a visit to London. "We
have to fulfil our mission, and not do anything that would increase the chaos in
Iraq."
But with the decision of new Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez
Zapatero also to pull his forces back from Iraq, much of Europe is beginning to
distance itself further from the United States, if not break with it yet. (END)
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