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| Europe |
| Austria Says Won’t Let U.S. Troops Cross Alps |
| 2003-02-14 |
| Neutral Austria said on Friday it had refused to let the United States redeploy troops from Germany to Italy across the Austrian Alps, the fastest route, and voiced surprise at criticism from Washington. Assholes Austria, a European Union member but a NATO outsider due to a neutral status created after World War II, said it could not allow troops it believed were being moved for a U.S. attack on Iraq to cross its territory. "Austrian law does not allow us to approve foreign troop movements without the proper grounds, in this case a U.N. mandate (for an Iraq war)," Defense Ministry spokesman Guenther Barnet told Reuters. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who has sharply criticized European foes of an Iraq war such as France and Germany, accused Austria on Thursday of blocking the movement of U.S. troops by rail from Germany to Italy. Rumsfeld's comments were a surprise to many in the Austrian government. "It is not usually done to talk about these things," Barnet said about the fact that Austria had turned down a U.S. diplomatic request for permission to ship the troops. "If the U.S. wants to make it public, that is their problem," Barnet said. It's your problem now. Barnet said the request for the troop movement had come "in the past few days" from the U.S. embassy in Vienna and been turned down by the Defense Ministry. Other government officials said they did not believe there was any damage to relations with Washington because the United States knew and understood Austria's neutrality policy. Austria's Alpine passes would be the most direct route for the movement, apparently part of a buildup of American forces preparing for possible war against Iraq. But conservative Chancellor Wolfgang Schuessel, whose citizens are largely opposed to any Iraq war, has already ruled out letting U.S. or allied military aircraft pass through Austrian airspace for a war unless it is backed by an explicit U.N. mandate. Schuessel has tried to maintain a balance within the EU's division into anti-war and pro-U.S. camps, saying Austria is "militarily but not politically neutral" and urging Iraq to comply with U.N. weapons inspections. However, his foreign minister said on Friday she sympathized with a Franco-German blockade of military preparations by NATO for defense of the Turkish-Iraqi border that has infuriated Washington. "I have understanding for the position of France, Germany and Belgium who are committed to the defense of Turkey in principle but do not want to plan for an Iraq war at the moment, when there is no U.N. mandate," Foreign Minister Benita Ferrero-Waldner told the newspaper Der Standard. Remember, Adolf Hitler was born in Austria. Another weasel to add to our shitlist. |
| Posted by:Steve |
| #7 Good point, Tom. Payback's a bitch, isn't it? |
| Posted by: Anonymous 2003-02-14 23:05:05 |
| #6 George's makin' a list, Checkin' it twice, Gonna find out who's naughty or nice, Payback time is comin' to town. |
| Posted by: Tom 2003-02-14 16:58:34 |
| #5 I'm not too concerned about it. The Austrians are adhering to the rules of neutrality. If they render any assistance to the Iraqis, then we have a legitimate bitch. |
| Posted by: Fred 2003-02-14 16:54:55 |
| #4 You know, theres an old saying about "Its a bad idea to throw rocks at a man trying to tame a tiger" - "He can forgive the tiger for its impulse to bite of his arm, but he's likely to resent the hell out of you distracting him while he's working - and when hes done taming the tiger, hes going to whip you but good" I think what we might be seeing here is the last gasp of the socialist world. |
| Posted by: Frank Martin 2003-02-14 16:29:37 |
| #3 Nothing surprising here. Austria as always been off limits for military transit since its neutralization with the withdrawl of American and Russian forces after WWII. The real question here is why come a*hole in the 3 section even planned on moving through the area. If you recall, we had to fly even around France to get to Libya in the 80s, cause you couldn't transit either French or Austrian airspace, and had to train through Czech and Hungary to get to the Balkans in the 90s. The Austrians are doing the same thing the Swiss do. Hell, there are rail lines through the Swiss Cantons as well that'll get you to good Italian ports. Why not be pissed off at them too? or do the Swiss get a special pass? and Why? |
| Posted by: Don 2003-02-14 16:10:59 |
| #2 What'll we do with our elephants now? Seriously though, does Austria have an embassy in Baghdad that might susceptible to target error due to pilot fatigue? |
| Posted by: tu3031 2003-02-14 15:45:38 |
| #1 This illustrates why we need to abandon our German bases. As I understand it, we actually did expect the Austrians to let us through and that this delay could seriously jeopardize the deployment schedule. |
| Posted by: JAB 2003-02-14 15:39:10 |