press review" "
On the eve of the Day for prayer and fasting called by the Pope to avert the threatened war in Iraq, the main international dailies continue to analyze how the American position has “changed”, after the assurances received from Baghdad on a start to the dismantling of the missile systems present in the country. “Iraq: bad blow for George Bush”, is the headline of the opening story in Le Monde (4/3), according to which the American president “is registering serious setbacks in the preparation for war”. “The vote of the Turkish Parliament, which has refused the USA access to the bases from which it was planning to penetrate Iraq from the north writes Patrick Jarreau in the French daily is a serious setback for George Bush”. Washington, however, “has not reacted officially”, at least so far, “to the rejection of the resolution presented by the Islamic government of Abdullah Gul, which met with the opposition of a part of the MPs of his own coalition”. Meanwhile demonstrations against the war continue: “several hundred thousand demonstrators notes the French daily took to the streets last weekend to protest against the war (…). At Karachi, responding to the appeal of many Islamic parties, a hundred million or so people participated in the biggest demonstration ever held in the country against the war”. Even in the American press dissent on the war as the “only way out” is being expressed. “Even if the war in Iraq seems ever more inevitable points out Eric Pierre in the Herald Tribune (5/3) it is ever more clear that the permanent members of the Security Souncil ought to have exerted pressure for more coercive weapons inspections”. The existence of a “plan B” in Washington, after the rejection of Turkish support and the disarmament operations now being implemented in Iraq, is assumed by La Croix (4/3), which in its edition of the previous day (3/3) had once again analyzed the possible “reasons” for Bush’s war on Iraq. Turkey’s rejection, observes Bruno Frappat in his editorial, “has caused fury in the Pentagon” and at the same time the destruction of missiles by Saddam Hussein reinforces the position of “all those who, like France, judge the inspections successful”. So why is “the America of Bush so set on war? (…) Only one question is posed by world public opinion to the American conscience: what is the truth of your war? If you want it to be shared, at least agree to say what it is”. The comments in the German press continue to concentrate on the international situation. Commenting in the Iraqi crisis, Dieter Ostermann writes in the Frankfurter Rundschau of 3/3: “ The Bush government has given the UNO two weeks’ time to authorize the war against Iraq or to become ‘irrelevant’. Now Washington is intent on completing the dismantling of the UNO even before that deadline. The unprecedented and unscrupulous attempt in recent days to buy or extort the votes of the Council is not only the expression of American isolation, but also of the low value attributed by the Bush government to the highest assembly of the world community“. “Next week, the UN Security Council will vote on the second Resolution presented by the USA, Great Britain and Spain, which is equivalent to an authorization of war“, notes the Süddeutsche Zeitung of 5/3. “ The result of the vote is still open. […] But the worst is that this final confrontation could be reached without at least one of the two sides making an effort to reduce tension or to communicate. The lack of communication on the eve of the UN vote gives proof of a depressing fatalism“. “ War of nerves in the Security Council: while in Baghdad Saddam Hussein plays to gain time, Washington wants finally to commit the UNO to the war against Iraq: the ‘European axis of peace’ is opposing this attempt”, writes the weekly Der Spiegel of 1/3.
