Germany may contribute its part to Iraq's post-war reconstruction even if the process is not carried out under UN supervision, a defence ministry spokesman said.

He reiterated that while Germany wanted the United Nations -- rather than the United States -- to oversee the reconstruction, he saw it as "certainly" playing at least a secondary role.

German Defence Minister Peter Struck had warned in a newspaper interview Sunday that Europe could not be expected to contribute troops or money to help Iraq's rehabilitation if the United States were running the country.

"If reconstruction is not placed under the UN, then I don't see any primary responsibility for Germany," he told the Frankfurter Rundschau.

But the spokesman told a regular government news conference Monday that it did not mean Berlin would refuse to play any role at all.

"As a soldier, I understand primary to mean that we are in the front line" if the process was under UN supervision, he said.

If reconstruction was not under UN supervision, it meant "that Germany is not in the front line but certainly in the second or third."

As U.S. forces closed in on Baghdad on Friday, a civilian official at the Pentagon rejoiced at the success of American arms but worried about things that had not happened. Weapons of mass destruction neither have been used by Saddam Hussein's legions nor found by the invading Anglo-American coalition.

The absence so far of WMD does not diminish justification, in the view of U.S. policymakers, for changing Baghdad's dictatorial regime. Nevertheless, they would like to collect real evidence of weapons. ''If we don't,'' said the official, ''you can bet the liberals will make a big deal out of it.''

White House and State Department officials were saying the same thing two weeks earlier. On March 24, a mid-level Bush administration official told me he feared that modest quantities of chemical weapons would constitute the entire cache of captured weapons of mass destruction, but added that he would be grateful for that much. The official, an early advocate of Iraqi regime change, is not fretting about the decision to go to war but about the global reaction to it.

The Japanese reactionaries are vociferous that Japan's security is threatened by the DPRK right now. But it is no more than a trick to find a pretext for Japan's reinvasion. Japan talked about "exclusive defence" in the past, but is now calling for legalization of preemptive attacks. This shows what dangerous phase its reinvasion hysteria has reached.
So invades first? Them, us, or the South Koreans?

Japanese officials are free to let loose very provocative outbursts that Japan may have a war with North Korea and Japan should make a preemptive attack on North Korea even with the help of the U.S. before the former is turned into a sea of fire.
Yeah! There it is! Sea of FIRE!!!

All the facts evidently tell that the Japanese reactionaries are keen to stage a comeback to Korea with the U.S. Iraqi war as an occasion. It is as clear as noonday what consequences Japan's reckless actions will produce. If Japan takes the road of reinvasion, dancing to the tune of the U.S. as it is doing so, its security cannot be guaranteed. Japan will get itself into a big trouble beyond imagination, if it acts like a puppy knowing no fear of the tiger.

The U.S. is going to use more than 300 types of ultra-modern weapons in the Iraqi war and has already used the "massive, ordinance, air blast (MOA)" bomb.
...and don't forget that Rodung. Has Kimmie ordered up another palace down a couple of hundred feet deeper?

This is hideous war crimes, crimes against humanity as they diametrically run counter to all international laws and regulations and the humanitarian principles of Red Cross including the 1949 Geneva convention on protecting civilians in wartime, the international convention on prevention and punishment of massacre and the Vienna convention on diplomatic relations. In order to impose its will upon the world the bush administration is perpetrating deliberate military attacks on other countries to infringe upon their sovereignty in violation of international law, projecting the U.S. government as a world government standing above the un.
Towel, Rodung?

The U.S. is, therefore, indifferent to the UN Charter and resolutions, international law and norms governing the international relations.
...or is that us? Rodung appears confused.

The U.S. imperialists have become so arrogant as to contemplate the second Korean war after the Iraqi war. There is no other imperialism of brigandish and roguish nature on earth than U.S. imperialism. The world people should deal blows at the U.S. through their united actions and make positive efforts to realize the democratization of the international community including the UN.