Where are the weapons? The un must lead the search

Tony Blair may have won the war, but he is in danger of losing the peace. This country did not go to war in order to overthrow Saddam Hussein. This invasion was sold to the British people on the basis of a genuine threat from Iraqi weapons and missiles to international peace and security. Britain’s participation in America’s missile defence plans is being sold on exactly the same basis. We are fully entitled to know whether the threat actually exists. We are entitled to know whether the situation in Iraq is as we were told. And we are entitled to expect that the inspection process has been carried out and verified by people and international agencies whom we can trust.

The Guardian,

January 2, 2004

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LONDON – U.S. President George W. Bush will lean on his staunchest ally Tony Blair when he arrives in London on Tuesday for a three-day visit, his first to a Western European capital since war in Iraq polarized the world.

Protesters have vowed to give the president his first taste of European anger at the war during the visit, which begins with a greeting from Prince Charles and includes three nights at Buckingham Palace as a guest of the Queen.

The Guardian,

September 5, 2003

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Paris. Sadam was a despot. True. THis justifies the war. False.

The United States made a "triple error" in launching war on Iraq, Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin of France said Thursday: "moral, political and strategic."

Interviewed on French radio and television, Raffarin said: "First, I think it is a real moral error. There were other alternatives to war. Iraq could have been disarmed in other ways."

He said it was a political mistake because the war threatened to intensify the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which could easily destabilize the entire Middle East.

He said the attack was a strategic error because it exemplified US unilateralism.

(AFP)

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Turkey Tries for Peace

ANKARA, Turkey (Reuters) – Turkey has invited five Middle Eastern leaders to Ankara next week for a summit amid Turkish efforts to avert a U.S.-led war against Iraq, the state-run Anatolian news agency said Thursday.

Muslim Turkey has opposed a war against Iraq, accused by Washington of developing weapons of mass destruction, because it fears conflict could spill across borders and stir economic and social upheaval. But it is a close ally of the United States and would be ill-placed to resist U.S. requests for its support.

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Russia’s President told students during a 90-minute question-and-answer session in Krasnoyarsk on Friday that the U.S. war in Iraq was a mistake that had encouraged terrorist actions there.

"We believed, and I continue to believe, that the military operation was a mistake, and the subsequent events have confirmed it," Putin told a group of about 80 students gathered at the library of the Siberian State Technological University.

"Casualties keep mounting, and terrorists feel increasingly at home there."

"This is a very dangerous process," he said, adding that the regime of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein had prevented terrorists from coming to Iraq.

Putin said the United States has come to realize the importance of the UN role in an Iraqi settlement. "We will work in cooperation with all those who are interested in that," he added.

The Moscow Times,

March 1, 2004

Упражнение V. текст для абзацно-фразового перевода на слух (см. инструкцию к домашнему заданию):

[Mr. Wolferen, a professor of the University in Amsterdam, Netherlands is on a dialogue with Mr. Sh. Migadai, a professor of Tokyo Metropolitan University.]

Sh. M.: Professor, how do you see the US war in Iraq?

W.: Concerning Iraq, the war violated the American Constitution because the American Constitution says that international treaties are legal within the United States and in fact it violated the Charter of the United Nations.

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If you want to look at it as a war, instead of an unwarranted invasion, then the people who are now fighting American troops should be consideredprisonersof warunder the Geneva rules because the Iraq authorities have neversurrendered. So, they cannot be called terrorists.

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The fact that other countries, including my own, including Japan, have not screamed about this on the international stage is extremely sad, because it means a reversalof what I’d like to call international political civilization.

Sh. M.: Do you know that at the conference in Madrid when America’s Secretary of State came practically hand in cap to ask for donations on rebuilding Iraq, Japan pledged $5 billion over five years, while European countries are to provide only $1.5 billion between them, less than one-third of Japan’s contribution. The gap between the two is enormous.

This "reconstruction" fund does not go through the UN Development Plan (UNDP). .Japan cannot check where the money is used. In effect, Japan is handing cash to the U.S. military, which violates the Japanese Constitution.

W.: Does it surprise you? Japan may be the world’s № 2 economic power, but when it comes to diplomacy it is like a boy who has to ask his parents (i. e. the United States) if he can go outside to play.

The Japan Times,

January 5, 2004

Note: i. e. – latin "ed est", читается по-английски "that is" = "то есть".