Shaky bridges built in Brussels

Date: 20/02/03

By David Cronin

DONALD Rumsfeld was right; there are two different Europes.

One Europe was clogging the streets of capital cities last Saturday (15 February), giving the clearest message yet that most citizens don't want Iraqi civilians killed in their name. The other was suffocating from the thick cigarette smoke inside Brussels' Justus Lipsius building on Monday.

It was hard not to think of the question "which part of "No" do you not understand?" as some EU figures at this week's summit gave an ingenious interpretation of the largest protests since the Vietnam War. The carcinogenic haze surrounding them must have blurred recollections of what exactly happened just two days previously.

British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, for example, suggested that only a "hardcore" among the one million demonstrators who thronged London last weekend opposed military action under any circumstances.

He claimed that the general view of the protestors he had talked to was that war may be necessary as a last resort. "Thatis also the position of the British government," he said. (A YouGov opinion poll published by The Daily Telegraph on 19 February corroborated that view to an extent: while 80% of respondents agreed that Saddam Hussein should be given a deadline to disarm and 76% of those believe military action should follow if he fails to meet the deadline, 54% were clear that the use of force was not justified at this time and 51% said they sympathised with those demonstrating on Saturday).

Javier Solana, the EU's high representative for foreign policy, insisted that the concerns of protestors had been addressed as the EU was only talking about the use of force as a last resort.

Nevertheless, the common stance agreed at the summit was more hawkish than many analysts had anticipated. The anti-war message might have been noted but it was sacrificed on the altar of realpolitik. "The demonstrators expressed a sentiment and a goal - peace," said Romano Prodi, European Commission president. "Our job is to find a political solution."

True, the document setting out the common stance contains the mantra "war is not inevitable". But it also states: "The Iraqi regime alone will be responsible for he consequences if it continues to flout the will of the international community."

One French diplomat confirmed that the UK had proposed that the text adopted by the summit shuld read like an ultimatum to Baghdad (the phrase

"last chance" isincluded in it). Even though President Jacques Chirac said his government "would have no choice" but to oppose a second UN resolution paving the way for a military strike, Paris viewed London's suggestion as "prudent", the dplomat added.

"The most important thing is to send a signal of strength, not weakness, because that is the language Saddam will understand," remarked Tony Blair, the British premier.

Significantly, the EU leader who has distanced himself furthest from Washington, Gerhard Schröder, was also ready to send out a signal of strength.

For the first tie, he accepted force may be required if diplomatic efforts prove fruitless. Until now he has resolved to oppose war against Iraq no matter how events unfol. Yet he backtracked on Monday, in an attempt to convince EU counterparts his position wasn't quite as entrenched as previously perceived.

"This government has never taken the position that force cannot be ruled out as a last resort," the chancellor said. "As a principle, history shows we have never ruled that out, nor could we rule it out."

Much has been made of Germany's insistence that the words "time is running out" should be excised from a draft of the common position.

As the EU's leading dove, Berlin appears eager to impress that its reservations are widely shared. So the final wording of the declaration had to involve a careful balancing act.

Diplomats have confirmed that a substantial part of the text which made it into the final compromise was devised by Belgium (another dove) and Ireland (a fence-sitter, albeit with close ties to America) in collaboration with Greece's EU presidency.

Together they found a set of words to bridge the sharply diverging views among governments on each side of the Channel.

A nod was made to the recent Franco-German plea for weapons inspections to become more intensive and intrusive ("they must be given the time and resources the UN Security Council believes they need").

But Tony Blair's impatience was partly endorsed too. "Inspections cannotcontinue indefinitely in the absence of full Iraqi cooperation," the summitdeclaration stated.

Those trying to work out exactly how much longer the EU wants the inspections to continue before bombs rain down on Baghdad and Basra will be none the wiser after the summit. "Nobody talked about a specific timeframe, about giving the inspectors another three or four or five weeks," an EU official said.

Costas Simitis, the Greek premier, argued that the Union was not the appropriate forum to state how long Hans Blix's team should remain in Iraq.

"It's not up to the European Union to decide on a policy that the Security Council will apply," he commented. "If there is a threat by one country against many others, that is a threat against world peace. Then, according to international law, according to the charter of the United Nations, it is the Security Council that has responsibility."

Kofi Annan, the UN secretary-general, was equally non-committal on the subject of timing: "There is no fixed time limit. The [inspectors'] work will continue until the Council decides to stop it."

Annan added his voice to the clamour for Saddam Hussein to comply with Security Council Resolution 1441. It states Baghdad must allow the inspectors unfettered access to the country or face unspecified "serious consequences". He implied that Iraq has so far failed to honour the obligations imposed on it.

"If they [Saddam and his henchmen] were to continue their defiance of Security Council Resolution 1441, the members may have to make a grim choice, a grim choice of whether to declare further material breach and the serious consequences that should follow," he said.

Yet Annan stressed he believes it still possible that a peaceful settlement can be found. He fears a war will spark major suffering among ordinary Iraqis and used the summit to give an assessment of the likely humanitarian crisis that would ensue.

The UN has calculated that between 4.5 and 9.5 million people could need food aid during and immediately after a conflict. Half the total population of 26.5 million could be deprived of drinking water. More than 500,000 could need medical assistance. All of this would be in a country in which some 70% of inhabitants already require outside help to survive, and in which one-third of children are malnourished and one-quarter born underweight.

Referring to a contingency plan for emergency aid which the UN is drawing up, Annan said: "We do not take for granted that war will come but we do not want to be caught unprepared."

One less-publicised aim of the summit was to highlight the fact that Iraq isn't the only country defying the Security Council. The brief allusion to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the conclusions did not expressly rap Israel for continuing to violate numerous UN resolutions in respect of its activities in the occupied territories. But it came close to doing so by stating that the building of Israeli settlements in Palestinian areas must stop, as must the cycle of terror and violence. Jack Straw was among those who used the summit to publicly remind Israel of its duty to respect what the UN has decided.

Officially, the purpose of linking the Iraqi crisis and the Middle East conflict was to make sure that the world's attention does not shift entirely away from the latter. EU leaders also wished to reiterate their support for the "road-map" they have devised alongside the UN, Russia and the US, which urges full Palestinian statehood by 2005.

Yet Israeli loyalists were clearly irked by the EU's efforts to subject their government to the same censure as Saddam. One Israeli diplomat said an important nuance was lost - the resolutions applying to Israel fall in a different category to 1441 and are, therefore, not legally binding. "The resolutions are totally different," he added. "This is a cynical use of the Middle East to establish a common position. It does not serve well the EU, the UN or the peace process."

So where do we go from here?

The Bush administration appears to be treating 28 February - when chief inspector Hans Blix is due to present his next report to the Security Council - as the critical deadline. There are indications America could use any remarks by Blix about Saddam's failure to honour Resolution 1441 as a pretext for war.

The ongoing military build-up in the Gulf - about 250,000 US and British troops are expected to be in place by early March - makes it increasingly unlikely they will pull back from the brink.

And the US won a significant coup late on Sunday when NATO backed its plans for protecting Turkey, a potential launch pad for a military onslaught, thereby locking the Alliance into the war preparations.

If war erupts, the EU will surely struggle to preserve the unity pieced together this week. Europe will find out then if leaders were merely paying lip service to the messages received from the millions who voted with their feet last weekend.

Report of an emergency European Council Summit, Brussels, 17 February 2003, to discuss the EU's stance on military action against Iraq.