In this issue:

European Scientists Map Manned Lunar Mission

British WMD Expert: We Were 'Overruled' on Blair Dossier

After Hutton Whitewash: Britons Still Want Truth on Iraq War

Tories Demand Broader Inquiry

Shifting the Blame Will Blow Back on Blair

Alliot-Marie Optimistic About French-U.S. Rapproachment

German Defense Chief Reaffirms: No Military Missions in Iraq

German Social Democrats Nervous over Popular Discontent.

Maastricht Pact Too Rigid in Times of Economic Woes

From Volume 3, Issue Number 6 of Electronic Intelligence Weekly, Published Feb. 10, 2004

Western European News Digest

European Scientists Map Manned Lunar Mission

At a Feb. 3 meeting in London of the scientists involved in Europe's Aurora long-term exploration program, director Dr. Franco Ongaro reported that the European Space Agency is aiming for a manned Moon mission in 2024. "We need to go back to the Moon before we go to Mars," he stated. "We need to walk before we run."

The stepping stones, he said, include two unmanned precursor Mars missions: a rover in 2009, and a sample return mission over 2011-14. The sample return mission is a highly complex one involving five spacecraft: an interplanetary transfer stage to get the spacecraft to Mars, a Mars orbiter, a module that would descend to the surface to collect the samples, an ascent module to carry the collected samples, and a re-entry vehicle, to return the ascent module with its samples to Earth.

Over the next five years, the Mars exploration program is expected to cost about $1.13 billion.

British WMD Expert: We Were 'Overruled' on Blair Dossier

Brian Jones, the British Defense Intelligence Service's (DIS) former top WMD expert whose revelations sparked the Hutton inquiry, now says that not a single defense intelligence expert backed the claims in the Blair dossier of September 2002, according to the London Independent Feb. 4.

Jones described DIS analysts working for him as "the foremost group of analysts in the West, on nuclear, biological, and chemical warfare intelligence." What they found to be missing, in looking at Iraq, was any strong evidence of the continuing existence of weapons and agents, or any substantive evidence regarding production and storage of such weapons.

"In my view," Jones said, "the expert intelligence analysts of the DIS were overruled in the preparation of the dossier in September 2002 resulting in a presentation that was misleading about Iraq's capabilities." Jones added that the intelligence analysts should not be blamed; rather, the "intelligence community leadership," including the heads of MI5 and MI6, and the head of the Joint Intelligence Committee, John Scarlet, are responsible for the Blair dossier, including its "45-minute-to-launch" claim about Saddam's weapons.

After Hutton Whitewash: Britons Still Want Truth on Iraq War

There's no way British Prime Minister Tony Blair will succeed in using an inquiry into the Iraq war as a damage-control exercise, stated Corelli Barnett, one of Britain's leading historians and military strategists, in a discussion with EIR Feb. 3. There's an overwhelming mood in Britain, after the Hutton report whitewash, to get to the truth of how and why Britain got involved in such a disastrous adventure, Barnett added.

"The whole case for justifying the Iraq war is collapsing. The Blair government fully justified going to war, but all that is falling apart," he said. "Now Blair has had to set up an inquiry, and the issue is its remit." He noted that there is a strong sentiment, both in the opposition parties (the Tories and the Liberal Democrats) and in Blair's own Labour Party, to focus not just on the narrow issue of "intelligence failures. They [Blair's government] wanted war, and they used spurious evidence to bring Britain into war."

Blair and Co. may wish for a damage-limitation exercise, but this won't wash, for one simple reason: "We have just been through the Hutton report, which was intended as a damage-limitation exercise, and it didn't work, it only generated more doubts because there is now a general agreement across the country, that it is a whitewash," according to Barnett.

Tories Demand Broader Inquiry

Tory Shadow Foreign Secretary Michael Ancram said the Blair inquiry has to investigate if there was political "cherry-picking" of intelligence material, and demanded that Blair's international political statements also be reviewed, British media reported Feb. 2.

Former Foreign Secretary Robin Cook has demanded to know if the inquiry committee would be able to "separate out the judgment of the threat from the political judgment to go to war on the basis of that threat."

Tory backbencher Kenneth Clarke noted how many people understood that the decision to go to war had been made by President Bush many months before the attack.

Shifting the Blame Will Blow Back on Blair

If Tony Blair tries to shift the blame onto the intelligence agencies for the Iraqi WMD debacle, this will blow back against him, in what is shaping up as the greatest scandal of government abuse of intelligence in modern times, the Guardian reported Feb. 3.

"There is widespread resentment among intelligence officials about the role played by Downing Street as [Britain's September 2002 dossier on Iraqi WMD] was being drafted," the paper's lead front-page article states. "The intelligence community is now blaming politicians for hyping up the claims."

This is elaborated by Richard Norton-Taylor, the Guardian's Security Affairs Editor, in an article titled, "Blame the Masters, Not the Servants." Norton-Taylor writes, "Blair and his closest advisers were determined to abuse intelligence, to produce a document to try and convince parliamentary and public opinion to back an invasion of Iraq. A train of events was set in motion leading to the greatest scandal involving the intelligence agencies in modern times."

The intelligence agencies were tasked by Downing Street to come up with intelligence that was "scarier" about Iraqi WMD than the reality indicated, Norton-Taylor writes, adding that both Clare Short and Robin Cook, former members of the Blair Cabinet who were privy to the available intelligence, said Feb. 3 that it would be wrong to blame the agencies for exaggerating the threat.

"Just as the CIA was bullied by elements in the White House and Pentagon, here senior intelligence officials succumbed to pressure from Downing Street. They say the hyping was done by the politicians, not by them."

All of this is of great importance, Norton-Taylor concludes, given that Blair has adopted the Bush Administration doctrine of "preemptive strikes, whose success or failure—and legality—will depend on accurate, not politicized, intelligence."

Alliot-Marie Optimistic About French-U.S. Rapproachment

In an interview with Germany's Feb. 2 Der Spiegel weekly, French Defense Minister Michele Alliot-Marie said she met a new "pragmatism" on the U.S. side with regard to European views on Iraq, when she visited Washington two weeks ago: Her U.S. discussion partners, including Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, have come to realize that the Franco-German warnings against the Iraq war were not driven by "evil motives," but by "our analysis based on our intelligence about the region, according to our best knowledge."

If France is ready to assist in the reconstruction of Iraq now, it will do so only according to certain principles and conditions: "End the occupation regime, return sovereignty to a legitimate Iraqi government, active participation of the United Nations." Like Germany, France is not discussing sending any troops to Iraq, Alliot-Marie said, but only training of Iraqi army, police, and militia. France will definitely not take part in any occupation regime.

France's position that Iraqi sovereignty should be restored as soon as possible has been vindicated by recent developments in Iraq, Alliot-Marie said. A lot of time, and thereby, confidence, has been lost, she insisted. Transferring power to a puppet regime will not suffice, nor stabilize the situation, she warned. But, there is also another danger: "There are forces who want to unleash global war between the Islamic world and the West. We have to be damned careful not to walk into that trap."

Whereas the overall community of transatlantic interests will remain, differences between the French vision of a multipolar world based on respect for international law, and the American drive towards unilateralism and preventive action, do exist as well, Alliot-Marie said. Whenever the Europeans want to emphasize their genuine interests, Americans misread it as an act of aggression. But the joint work done in fighting terrorism in Afghanistan and the French invitation to President Bush and Chancellor Schroeder for the 60th anniversary of D-Day on June 6, may help to overcome these misunderstandings, she said.

German Defense Chief Reaffirms: No Military Missions in Iraq

German Defense Minister Peter Struck told the Feb. 4 Sueddeutsche Zeitung that "more military presence does not solve the problems of Iraq. Only changed general conditions like a new UN resolution, [or] an elected Iraqi government, can help." Struck reaffirmed that a German military mission in Iraq is out of question, but other aid may be possible: "But who knows whether nation-building will be on the agenda in Iraq in three, four years from now? If a democratically elected Iraqi government should ask us for humanitarian help, we will not deny them that." The French Defense Minister thinks the same way, Struck added.

As for Afghanistan, the EuroCorps will most likely take over the ISAF (NATO International Security Assistance Force) command in August, and if the Franco-German Brigade is to be deployed there, it will not raise any problems in the German Parliament, Struck said.

German Social Democrats Nervous over Popular Discontent.

The Feb. 2-3 Berlin session of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) Council lasted longer (three hours) than scheduled, and turned quite turbulent, as the most recent opinion polls, which give disastrous ratings for the ruling SPD and its leader, Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, were reviewed.

High anxiety was voiced regarding the SPD's chances in the 14 elections that take place in Germany this year, beginning with the Hamburg city-state elections on Feb. 29. The SPD of Northrhine-Westphalia—the biggest German state with almost 20% of the national electorate—will hold municipal elections on Sept. 26, but faces severe difficulties finding candidates: members do not want to run for their party, nor engage in election campaigning.

Maastricht Pact Too Rigid in Times of Economic Woes

The European Union's Maastricht Pact is too rigid in times of economic problems, and needs to be reviewed, said EU Finance Commissar Solbes in an interview in Germany's Wirtschaftswoche weekly, published Feb. 5.

Solbes said exemptions from the Maastricht rule of 3% GDP new annual state borrowings should be permitted, if investments were made in economically meaningful areas, and factors such as inflation and the ratio of total indebtedness to GDP, should be taken into account. Each country should be measured according to its specific situation, not every country on the same standard, Solbes said.

His offer of "some Maastricht modification," which is only a trial balloon so far, apparently is an attempt to coopt some features of Italian and Franco-German initiatives, while at the same time keeping the dysfunctional Maastricht system alive. Solbes's remarks reflect that the increasing disloyalty to Maastricht of France, Germany, and Italy is seen as a serious challenge.

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