RICE VS. RUMSFELD….On Meet the Press this morning, Condoleezza Rice had this to say:
We don?t need to allow this to become a street fight between the United States and France and the United States and Germany.
But according to The Observer Donald Rumsfeld feels rather differently:
[After] weeks of increasingly angry exchanges between Rumsfeld and Germany…. Rumsfeld has decided to go further by unilaterally imposing the Pentagon’s sanctions on a country already in the throes of economic problems.
‘We are doing this for one reason only: to harm the German economy,’ one source told The Observer last week.
….Another Pentagon source said: ‘The aim is to hit German trade and commerce. It is not just about taking out the troops and equipment; it is also about cancelling commercial contracts and defence-related arrangements.’
….Under these plans, the US would move its troops in Europe eastwards to countries such as Poland, the Czech Republic and the Baltic states, all of which have strongly supported America’s line against Saddam Hussein. It is likely that the overall size of the deployment would be reduced, as the US military changes its priorities for a long-term and disparate engagement with international terrorism.
So which is it? And when are those famous grownups we’ve heard so much about going to be put in charge?
