The tragic anniversary of September 11 monopolizes the attention of the main European and international dailies. “Our readers recount…”: is the form chosen by the Herald Tribune (10/9) to commemorate the victims of the terrrorist attacks on the Twin Towers in New York and on the Pentagon in Washington. The paper in fact devotes a whole “special” to the anniversary: it is filled with the voices and contributions of some of the over 200 readers who sent in “poetry and prose, photographs and works of art as testimonies of the events” that shocked the whole world. La Croix (6/9) takes a look at how Europeans “are living” September 11 a year after. According to Bruno Frappat, Europeans are divided “between the virtues of commemoration and homage, feelings of compassion, a bitter aftertaste that mixes the risks of media overexposure and the impression, for some, that the crime has not been ‘expiated’ and, for others, that America is exaggerating the incumbent threats“. This “ uncertainty” is due, in the leader-writer’s view, to the fact that September 11 has led everyone to ask himself whether “there’ll be other wars, other enemies” and has led us “to interrogate ourselves on the existence of good and evil, on universal values, on the relation of religions with the world and their attitude to freedom”. On the eve of the anniversary, Le Monde (10/9) dedicated its front-page story to the “preventive” measures announced by President Bush against Iraq and gives extensive coverage in its international pages to a study of the international Institute of Strategic Studies from which it emerges that “the regime of Saddam Hussein does not have the means for rapidly developing a nuclear weapon”, even though it “still has at its disposal an arsenal of biological and chemical weapons”. “Iraq explains in detail Jacques Isnard in the article could put together an atomic bomb in a few months, if it were to obtain fissile material from a foreign source, but, in its present technological condition, it seems improbable that it already possesses such weapons or is about to produce them in the next few years. On the other hand, Iraq possesses the basic know-how and sufficient industrial capacity to produce biological weapons”. Great attention is devoted by the German press to the anniversary of September 11 and the possible US conflict with Iraq, particularly in the light of the position of the Schröder government which rejects any kind of military intervention, even if backed up by a resolution of the United Nations. In the weekly Die Zeit no. 37/2002 of 5/9, Josef Joffe observes: “ Those who want to deprive Saddam of atomic potential, cannot run the fatal risk of a war without first having exhausted all other means, first and foremost the restoration of the regime of weapons inspections. To this inevitable task the Germans too will also have to contribute“. Jochen Hehn notes in Die Welt of 5/9 that “ the various views” on the intervention in Iraq “ divide not only the community of the 15 but also the privileged relationship between Germans and French“. Of the same view is Stefan Kornelius who writes in the Süddeutsche Zeitung of 7/9: “ The European political order, with its system of cooperation and compromise, conflicts with the American determination which works with the laws of the classic national State and ignores any kind of alliance. The Islamic attack has obtained an important objective: the 11 September is exerting its destructive effect on the Western system“. Regarding the position of Europe on Iraq, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung of 10/9 affirms: “ Anyone who doubts the capacity of the Europeans in world politics has received further confirmation in recent days. Clearly in Europe no one who exerts any influence thinks any longer of formulating a common position“. In the same number, Matthias Rüb comments: “ The latest media offense of the [US] government is a kind of review of the threat of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction for nationaql and international public opinion, as well as for sceptical allies. Apart from this, there’s only room for another matter: the memory of the shock caused by the attacks, when America discovered its own vulnerability in so atrocious a manner. Clearly the two things are inseparable“. “ USA against Iraq The war announced“, is the headline of the weekly magazine Spiegel no. 37 of 9/9. “ Chancellor Schröder uses the threat of a war against Iraq for a risky show of force with the American world power. Only thus can he obtain the wished-for impetus in the electoral campaign perhaps even victory? But the price of this conflictual stance could be isolation from the allies“, warn Ralf Beste and Alexander Szandar.
