I'm not one of the Euro-bashers around here but being called on their behavior has clearly embarassed France and its hangers on. Iraqi interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi sought to calm anger on Friday over his description of states that opposed the U.S.-led war to oust Saddam Hussein as "spectators." "What I said is that history is history, past is past. We need to start operations, to start a new chapter and look to the future. We definitely want to forge a positive alliance with Europe," Allawi told reporters after a breakfast meeting with British Prime Minister Tony Blair in Brussels. German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder called Allawi's comment "a slip of the tongue" and said he would remind the prime minister of Germany's contribution in training Iraqi police and military in the United Arab Emirates and in offering to write off a substantial amount of Iraqi debt. Luxembourg Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker, one of the European critics of the war, told reporters: "I don't like the expression 'spectator states' at all. I don't understand it, and if I do understand it right, I don't like it at all." | Oh, I expect you understand it perfectly. And if you don't like it, too bad. |
French President Jacques Chirac, the most outspoken opponent of the Iraq invasion, skipped the meeting with Allawi to fly to the United Arab Emirates but insisted it was no snub. "There is no problem naturally with the Iraqi authorities," Chirac told a news conference, adding he had invited Iraqi President Ghazi Yawar to Paris and he had accepted. France canceled a planned visit by Yawar in September after two French journalists were taken hostage in Iraq. However, diplomats said Chirac's early exit was a clear snub and disclosed that France had managed to get a phrase explicitly welcoming Allawi deleted from the draft summit statement. |