In this issue:

Say Iraq War Could Cause More Casualties Than World War I Battles

French Historian Asserts That Eurasian Alliance Can Outstrip U.S.

Blair Government Hit with Multiple Resignations

Clare Short Rebuffed by Washington in Attempt To Get UN Role in Postwar Iraq

French Elected Officials Appalled at U.S. Warhawks

Did Silvio Berlusconi Sign His Political Death Warrant?

German Government Voices 'Great Concern and Shock' Over Start of War

LaRouche at Bad Schwalbach: Real Leadership Required To Rebuild This World

Tam Dalyell Greets Bad Schwalbach Conference

From Volume 2, Issue Number 12 of Electronic Intelligence Weekly, Published Mar. 24, 2003

Western European News Digest

Say Iraq War Could Cause More Casualties Than World War I Battles

An Iraq war will end up causing more casualties than the First World War, and will involve decades of massive unrest in and around Iraq—and the White House is oblivious to warnings from the State Department about such realities, stated Britain's Sir Michael Howard, the dean of British military historians, in an interview with the March 16 Sunday Times of London. Himself a cold-blooded, cynical type, Howard came out in support for the "inevitable" war.

Howard asserted that the war is "a vile gamble," and could mean more deaths than the bloody Battle of the Somme, in the First World War. He asserted that Tony Blair has no idea of what is coming, and said: "The parallels with the First World War are frightening, right down to the ultimatum which they knew couldn't be met."

Howard said he foresees a century of unrest in the Middle East and environs following on the war, even though the war itself might not last long: "I accept the war might be over in 10 days. For a month, everyone will be stunned, how easy it was. Then, all the problems will emerge."

Now teaching at Washington University in St. Louis, Howard has considerable access to the Bush Administration, and reported the following: "The State Department knows what it is letting itself in for, but it hasn't penetrated the Oval Office. It's like my spook friends told me during the Cold War: The KGB knew what was happening in the world outside, but the Kremlin didn't want to hear." An added problem is that "a lot of people in the Administration are in imperial mood, they want to establish their power, secure Israel, and rule the Middle East."

Howard commented that the war will trigger more terrorism, break down existing forms of transatlantic cooperation on terrorism, and leave Britain and the U.S. alone, in an increasingly chaotic Middle East. He added that the U.S. handled the "war on terrorism" completely wrongly, over the past months: "To lose all your friends in a year, does take a certain amount of talent."

But Howard said he was on board for the war: "The argument I do buy, is that Saddam is in breach of the UN, and there is no reason not to stop him now. Deterrence only works, if you might use it."

French Historian Asserts That Eurasian Alliance Can Outstrip U.S.

French historian Emmanuel Todd, in an interview last week in the German newsmagazine Der Spiegel, endorsed the Eurasian alliance perspectives, and said the war against Iraq would be the beginning of the decline of a United States that was too overextended, both militarily and economically, to be a lasting empire. "Bush's brutality in foreign-policy terms has worked as a massive incentive for the Franco-German duo. A new world-political pole is emerging here, which already is showing enough dynamic to also attract Russia," Todd said. Since the end of the Cold War, the emergence of this "natural and normal" alliance between France, Germany, and Russia had been latent, and now it is taking shape, Todd said.

In economic potential, he asserted, the new Eurasian bloc has clear advantages over the United States, whose problem is "creeping deindustrialization. European industrial output is bypassing the U.S.A.'s by far, even in top technologies." And, the United States has grown totally dependent on the unabated inflow of foreign capital, with an unprecedented trade deficit of nearly $500 billion. "But this cannot work forever. Soon, also this bubble will explode."

It is worth noting that German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer also referred to "Eurasia," in an interview with the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung March 16. Though superficially opposing any reference to a "Paris-Berlin-Moscow-Beijing axis of reason," Fischer did state that "Europe is part of the Eurasian continent." Conceding that, in military terms, Europe is not taken seriously by the United States, he added that it is otherwise when it comes to Europe's economic power.

Blair Government Hit with Multiple Resignations

On March 17, Robin Cook, who once was British Prime Minister Tony Blair's Foreign Secretary, and was Leader of the House of Commons—Blair's righthand man in the Labour Party—resigned from Blair's Cabinet in protest of the Iraq war. On March 18, two more Cabinet members resigned: Junior Health Minister Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, and Home Office Minister John Denham. Lord Hunt stated that he had agonized over Britain's Iraq policy for weeks. He told BBC Radio 4's "Today" program: "I don't support the preemptive action which is going to be taken without broad international support or, indeed, the clear support of the British people." His resignation came hours before British Prime Minister Tony Blair was to go before the British Parliament, to ask Parliamentarians to back "all means necessary" to deal with Iraq.

Then followed Denham's resignation. He said, "I have this morning resigned from the government as I cannot support the government's vote tonight.... I hope to speak in the debate later today."

But disappointingly, Overseas Development Secretary Clare Short, who earlier had asserted that she would resign were Britain to go to war without UN backing, is staying on in the Cabinet.

Clare Short Rebuffed by Washington in Attempt To Get UN Role in Postwar Iraq

According to the March 22 issue of the London Guardian, the Bush Administration has rebuffed British Overseas Development Secretary Clare Short in her efforts to secure a role for the UN in postwar Iraq. Short, who declined to leave the Blair Cabinet over the issue of the war because Prime Minister Tony Blair promised that the UN would play such a role, was told just the opposite when she was in Washington last week. She met both U.S. and UN officials without resolving the issue.

The Pentagon is said to want to totally freeze the UN out of Iraq. In fact, the Guardian reported that British Foreign office sources say that the only reason the U.S. wanted a new UN resolution was "as a cover for their activities, rather than a route to enabling the UN to coordinate reconstruction." These sources said that without a UN resolution, U.S. and U.K. occupying forces would have no legal right to run the country's institutions. "There is no legal mandate for that sort of activity. It's all quite bizarre."

French Elected Officials Appalled at U.S. Warhawks

Public and private statements made by French Deputies and Senators in the leadup to war last week indicate a very high degree of awareness of the full implications of the takeover of U.S. politics by the "Chickenhawks."

A French Parliamentarian with 40 years' experience in international affairs just back from a five-week trip to the Third World, told an EIR reporter that "if the USA goes ahead with war, it is the end, not only of international law, but of the very notion of law. We shall return to a universe of non-law, of might makes right. Nothing the USA ever says, on any issue, will be credible, because it is now clear to all that they will cleave to no undertaking, no matter how solemn. The end of everything, if this goes ahead. If Mr. LaRouche is trying to stop this, I cannot but congratulate him."

Paul Quiles, a Socialist Party Deputy who led the Defense Commission at the National Assembly for several years, has been giving extremely sharp statements in radio and TV interviews. "I should never have supported the first Gulf War," he stated in one of them. "I did not realize the implications, and the impact the embargo would have. It was a mistake. The Americans have got 250,000 men in there and five aircraft carriers. They are going to war, and we can't stop them. But we cannot go along with them. Chirac is right to challenge that. If the U.S. wants war, let them go alone. We must impose a veto in the UN; otherwise, the UN will go the way of the League of Nations. International law is being torn up. It won't mean a thing anymore. Anyone will be able to trot off and do anything.

"It is pure imperialism—reducing countries to satrapies. Turkey, China, Mexico—the U.S. is throwing money at people as though there were no tomorrow, to buy their support. But who says it will work? Who can support such a thing?

"I don't think people are clear that the U.S. is willing to use a nuclear option. They are talking about mini-nuclear weapons. Do people realize what that means? Edward Kennedy has brought it up, and I think it should be more widely discussed."

Did Silvio Berlusconi Sign His Political Death Warrant?

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi may have signed his political death warrant last week when, in front of the Parliament, he declared that "conditions for the use of force are today legitimately determined," thus recognizing a legitimacy in the war against Iraq. Berlusconi added that Italy will not participate directly in the war, but, like other European countries including Germany, will concede the use of air space and bases on its territory. After Berlusconi's speech, the Chamber of Deputies voted a motion of support which collected a majority of 304 votes against 246. About 40 members of the majority party voted against or abstained.

Previously, Secretary of State Colin Powell had listed Italy as being among 30 nations which would support the war, and George W. Bush had written a letter to Berlusconi thanking him "for your support." Such statements provoked strong reactions from the parliamentary opposition, which ironically stressed that Colin Powell is the real spokesman of the Italian government.

Meantime, in foreign policy debate March 19 in the Italian Senate, the Old Guard of pro-American statesmen spoke out against the war: four elder statesmen, who have been the staunchest allies of the United States for the past 50 years. The four were former Prime Ministers Giulio Andreotti and Emilio Colombo, and former State Presidents Oscar Luigi Scalfaro and Francesco Cossiga. They all participated in the Marshall Plan, the founding of NATO and of the European Union; Andreotti, Colombo, and Scalfaro were members of the Congress that drafted the Italian Constitution; Cossiga stressed that he had, as a Cabinet member, helped to build the original stay-behind network of NATO.

Scalfaro complained that Premier Berlusconi had told him privately before the debate that he sensed in Bush a "messianic" will, but did not repeat that before the Parliament.

Scalfaro declared: "We are strangers to a war which disrupts everything we have built for 50 years." Andreotti said that "the Iraq war is illegitimate because it has no continuity with the war on terrorism ... because the connection between Osama and Saddam has not been proven. It is just the will to punish a rogue state, and eventually others, starting with Iran, whose democratization process should instead be defended." Colombo found it curious that the U.S. has "decided on a war [at the side of] Great Britain and, who knows why, with Spain." "Old ghosts are surfacing again; we, in our time, fought hard against the exclusive Anglo-American relationship, in order to be able to draw England into the European Community." Cossiga said that the government should deny the use of its air space and bases.

Former Italian Premier and traditional pro-American statesman Giulio Andreotti said that "to light a fire in the epicenter of oil resources could be, among other considerations, a collective suicide." "I believe that none of us, if he has seen and listened to the Pope on Sunday's Angelus prayer, can deny having felt a deep emotion. One was reminded of Pius XII's warning, when he went personally ... to implore Italy not to enter World War II [on the side of Nazi Germany], and said: 'nothing is lost with peace, everything is lost with war.'"

German Government Voices 'Great Concern and Shock' Over Start of War

Coordinated with other governments that are opposed to the war (Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder conferred with French President Jacques Chirac, for example), the Chancellor's office circulated a statement March 20 saying that "the news of the beginning of the war against Iraq has caused great concern and shock to the German government."

The government "hopes that combat actions could be completed as quickly as possible, and urges "all warring parties to do everything in their power to avoid civilian casualties."

The statement stressed that Germany insists that the United Nations, particularly the Security Council, play "a central role in the restoration of peace in Iraq," with emphasis on the "maintaining of territorial integrity of Iraq." French President Jacques Chirac, with whom Schroeder is coordinating, even said last week that France would veto any resolution put before the UN Security Council to permit the U.S. and the U.K. to manage the reconstruction of Iraq after the war. Some media reported that Chirac and British Prime Minister Tony Blair, seated side by side at a meeting last week in Brussels, engaged in a screaming match on the subject of the war.

In a nationally televised statement March 20, Schroeder told the Germans that his government "has tried to prevent that war. Until the last minute. I am sure there would have been another way to disarm the dictator, the United Nations way. And I am aware that I am united, in this approach, with the great majority of our nation, with the majority at the UN Security Council and with the majority of nations. The wrong decisions have been made. The logic of war has prevailed over the logic of peace. Thousands of human beings will have to suffer terribly for that.

"I said, a wrong decision has been made. This is our view, which has to be voiced clearly. And we share this view with French President Chirac, with Russian President Putin, and many others in the world that bear special responsibility.

"The differences over the war issue are clear differences of view between governments, not deep differences between friendly nations. The substance of our relations to the United States of America is not endangered. The nations of this world desire peace. They want the rule of law, which is the basis of any freedom. That is what we are working for. Germany, as I have assured, will not take part in the Iraq war."

The alliance obligations (overflight and transport rights for the American forces in Germany, etc.) which Germany has within NATO, are not affected, Schroeder added. The Chancellor concluded by voicing hope that the war may end soon, so that "the world, for the sake of its common future, can turn back to the road of peace, as soon as possible."

LaRouche at Bad Schwalbach: Real Leadership Required To Rebuild This World

The Schiller Institute's European conference, "How To Reconstruct a Bankrupt World," opened at Bad Schwalbach, Germany March 21 with a keynote address delivered by U.S. Democratic pre-Presidential candidate Lyndon LaRouche.

After a musical introduction, Uwe Friesecke of the Schiller Institute delivered welcoming remarks, noting that with Bush's war against Iraq now begun, one may speak of a "broken world" which has to be rebuilt. Friesecke presented the speakers on the first panel, along with LaRouche: Civil Rights veteran Amelia Boynton Robinson; former Indian government minister Chandarjit Yadav; Dr. Bi Jiyao of the Academy of Macro-Economic Research, China; and Prof. Dr. Vladimir Myasnikov, Institute of the Far East, Academy of Sciences, Russia. Also welcomed were William Wertz from the Schiller Institute in the United States, and Tibor and Judith Kovacs from the Schiller Institute in Hungary.

Friesecke also welcomed former diplomats from South Korea, Poland, and Zimbabwe, as well as political guests and academicians from several countries of Africa, Eastern Europe, Russia, Ukraine, Georgia, and numerous guests from the LaRouche Youth Movement from several countries. A special telegram to the conference by Tam Dayell, doyen of the British House of Commons, was read, which welcomed LaRouche's efforts, and called for legal action against Tony Blair and his Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw, who started the war on the British side of things.

(For the text of LaRouche's remarks, see THIS WEEK YOU NEED TO KNOW, in this issue of EIW.)

Tam Dalyell Greets Bad Schwalbach Conference

"I applaud Lyndon LaRouche's caring and serious approach toward Iraq," said Tam Dalyell, longest-serving member of the British House of Commons, in a message to the Schiller Institute's European conference. "I wish you success for your conference," he said.

On the Iraq war, Dalyell said: "What needs to be done, is, when the fighting ends, is to look at the legal position, in international law, of those who launched this atrocity. Which includes the British Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary. There has to be an examination of their motives, and it has to be ensured that Iraqi oil revenues are used for the Iraqi people."

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