A SMOKING GUN OF A DIFFERENT SORT?

Expurgated portions of Iraq’s December 7 report to the UN Security Council show that German firms made up the bulk of suppliers for Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction programs. What’s galling is that German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and his minions have long known the facts, German intelligence services know them and have loads of information on what Saddam Hussein is hiding, and Schroeder nonetheless plays holier than thou to an easily manipulated, pacifist-inclined domestic audience.

If it’s not the height of hypocrisy and opportunism, Schroeder’s preemptive “no war. period” stance on Iraq and insistence on a “German Way” (Deutscher Weg) certainly come close. German Way? Haven’t we heard that sort of talk before sometime, somewhere? But leave that be. It falls in the same category as Schroeder’s former justice minister’s comparison of US President George W Bush to Adolf Hitler in last summer’s election campaign. Not only Schroeder and that unfortunate lady, but politicians elsewhere are of limited mental accountability when desperate about winning an election, and suffer lapses of speech and memory.

There’s much more, in this piece from Asia Times. It seems like some other media outfits might want to look into this. It certainly dovetails with Steven Den Beste’s theory that the German and French governments are desperate to avoid war because they know that once a war is over we’ll find out just how thoroughly in bed with Saddam they were. And, perhaps, still are.