Punish France, ignore Germany, forgive Russia

By Mark Alexander · Friday, June 6, 2003

"Punish France, ignore Germany, forgive Russia." This was the advice attributed to National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice in the aftermath of Operation Iraqi Freedom, and it appears this is the tack the Bush administration will pursue. This week's summit of the Group of Eight industrial democracies in Evian, France -- the first meeting of President Bush with the European leaders since the war -- demonstrated this point.

When he arrived in France, President George Bush was greeted by French President Jacques Chirac with a handshake humorously described in every media account as "briefer" than Chirac's handshakes with other G-8 leaders. As the first step in a series of retributions planned against France, Bush presented the French leader with a three-volume, leather-bound set of books on American Indian culture. When asked about the future health of Franco-American relations, neither man responded.

And speaking of Franco-American relations, it was on this day in 1944 that 156,000 American and Allied forces landed on the Normandy coast in a courageous endeavor to liberate France and turn the tide of war. Supreme Allied Commander General Dwight Eisenhower told his troops: "You are about to embark upon the Great Crusade.... The hopes and prayers of liberty-loving people everywhere march with you.... Your task will not be an easy one. Your enemy is well trained, well equipped and battle-hardened. He will fight savagely. Let us all beseech the blessing of Almighty God upon this great and noble undertaking." Indeed, we are most grateful for those great Patriots, and all those since who have stood in harm's way in defense of liberty.

Meanwhile, President Bush's brief, chilly brush with German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder should be...well...ignored.

By way of contrast, Bush's St. Petersburg meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin on the occasion of that city's 300th anniversary was accompanied by a marked good will. Bush described Putin as his "good friend," inviting the Russian leader to Camp David in September, along with other world leaders. The invitation was not extended to France or Germany.

On the subject of Iran's Russian-backed nuclear-energy program, Putin assured the public that the U.S. and Russian positions "are much closer than they seem." Putin insisted that Iran comply with all IAEA requirements by June 16, when the UN's nuclear watchdog group next convenes.

The G-8 summit, said one senior U.S. diplomat speaking on the condition of anonymity, "clearly represented a turning point and an end to a cool period in our relationship with Russia." Restoring good will with France and Germany, he admitted, may involve "a little longer time."

President Bush used the summit as an opportunity to promote his key global objectives -- the war on terrorism and securing the nuclear disarmament of Iran and North Korea -- while giving attention to other issues such as Third World development and AIDS in Africa. At the same time, Chirac used the occasion to promote the myth of a "multipolar" world. In other words, Chirac and other European leaders are intent on setting themselves at odds with Washington for the singular purpose of bolstering Old Europe's prestige while diminishing U.S. influence in global affairs. White House spokesman Ari Fleischer noted: "...[A]llies treat each other as partners, without regard to poles." Despite European quibbling, President Bush emerged victorious, with the G-8 leaders issuing a declaration placing Iranian and North Korean nuclear weapons proliferation on notice.

The stated purpose of the G-8 group is economic. As The Federalist has consistently maintained, we hold that the most effective means of fighting global terrorism and the extremism of such failed states as North Korea is President Bush's policy of preemptive self-defense where attack against the U.S. appears imminent, combined with the stability intrinsic to world democratization and promotion of free-market capitalism.

In other news...

The White House, Pentagon and CIA came under heightened scrutiny this week as voices on Capitol Hill called for hearings on the absence of any WMD finds in the wake of Operation Iraqi Freedom. Both houses of Congress are planning to conduct inquiries into the intelligence information used to justify the war, questioning whether intelligence was molded to fit the administration's policy objectives.

CIA Director George Tenet, who is expected to testify before joint hearings of the Senate Intelligence and Armed Services committees, adamantly defended the agency's work. "Our role is to call it like we see it, to tell policymakers what we know, what we don't know, what we think, and what we base it on," Tenet said in a rare public statement released by the agency. "The integrity of our process was maintained throughout and any suggestion to the contrary is simply wrong."

As Tenet and the intelligence community stand behind their assertions of Iraqi WMD, other administration officials have likewise voiced confidence in the search. L. Paul Bremer, head of the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) in Iraq, concluded, "It seems very hard to believe that Saddam Hussein would have put his people through the misery he put them through for 12 years ... if he didn't have something to hide." President Bush, whose own Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board is also investigating the alleged intelligence shortcomings, reassured U.S. troops at coalition headquarters in Qatar this week, saying confidently, "We'll reveal the truth" about Saddam's WMD programs, adding that while the search may take time, "We've made sure Iraq is not going to be used as an arsenal for terrorist groups. ... America sent you on a mission to remove a grave threat and liberate an oppressed people, and that mission has been accomplished."

As the Left took its assailing of the President and the intelligence community to a whole new level (while the President was out of the country), the CIA went on the offensive. This week the agency "leaked" a report indicating al-Qa'ida's readiness to use chemical, biological and radiological or nuclear (CBRN) weapons. The report, entitled "Terrorist CBRN: Materials and Effects," states that al-Qa'ida's "goal is the use of CBRN to cause mass casualties," adding that Islamic terrorists, including and linked to al-Qa'ida, "have a wide variety of potential agents and delivery means to choose from for chemical, biological and radiological or nuclear attacks." The report confirms that several al-Qa'ida chemical weapons attacks against European leaders and population centers have been intercepted and suggests that the terror group could produce an "improvised nuclear device" or a radiological dispersion device -- a so-called "dirty bomb."

For its part, the Pentagon also came out swinging against critics of the Iraq-al-Qa'ida connection, as Douglas Feith, undersecretary of defense for policy, announced the findings of a special intelligence team which has concluded that al-Qa'ida's religious ideology does not prevent the group from cooperating with state sponsors of terrorism. The team, commissioned in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, concludes that "groups and states were willing to cooperate across philosophical, ideological lines." The intelligence report debunks popular myths about Islamic terrorists, says Feith, showing that "Sunni and Shi'a groups cooperated, or religious-based groups cooperated with secular groups or states." Amid the growing storm of accusations ranging from "tweaked" intelligence to outright lies, the undersecretary concluded unambiguously, "From our perspective, it's pretty clear that the intelligence community's judgments concerning Iraqi weapons of mass destruction did not undergo a major change between the Clinton and Bush administrations."

The Federalist, in the final analysis, maintains a singular position on the subject of Iraqi WMD: the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. The politicization and Leftmedia hype of this issue will not change the fact that Saddam Hussein was evil, his regime needed to be destroyed, and WMD -- like the two mobile biological-weapons labs discovered in recent weeks -- will be found. The $64,000 question is, will Iraq's WMD stores be found prior to their use by Jihadi terrorists? As The Federalist noted last year, UN and European obstructionists to the war with Iraq provided a significant window for those weapons -- particularly biological and nuclear -- to be transported out of Iraq to Iran or Syria.

Quote of the week...

"This is a time for all of us to unite in the defense of liberty and to step up to the shared duties of free nations. ...The enemies of freedom have always preferred a divided alliance -- because when Europe and America are united, no problem and no enemy can stand against us." --President George Bush, speaking words of challenge -- and reconciliation -- to G-8 leaders in Evian, France.

On cross-examination...

"The 'right reason' for this war was the need to partner with Iraqis, post-Saddam, to build a progressive Arab regime. Because the real weapons of mass destruction that threaten us were never Saddam's missiles. The real weapons that threaten us are the growing number of angry, humiliated young Arabs and Muslims, who are produced by failed or failing Arab states -- young people who hate America more than they love life. Helping to build a decent Iraq as a model for others -- and solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict -- are the necessary steps for defusing the ideas of mass destruction, which are what really threaten us." --Thomas Friedman