Bigger NATO waters down statement on Iraq

The bigger and, we are told, better NATO alliance papered over its deep divisions concerning Iraq and issued a watered-down statement firmly agreeing that the Iraqi government must disarm.

France, as expected, is trying to sandbag President Bush, who insists Saddam Hussein is lying when he says Iraq has no weapons of mass destruction. "That is his own interpretation and we do not share it," a French official told reporters at the NATO summit in Prague. "We have never said there was proof that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. We say there are indications."

Apart from Britain and use of military bases in Turkey, US forces have little need of significant military help from NATO countries to strike the Iraqi regime. U.S. forces have little need of practical military help from NATO allies for any attack on Iraq, but the Bush administration argues that it would be nice to have NATO’s moral support.

NATO issued an amgibuous statement that was firm that Iraq must disarm, but wishy-washy about how to make the regime do so. Reuters reports that NATO delegates "watered down" the original message.

The alliance is missing the point. Disarmament isn’t the only issue. As Center for Security Policy President Frank Gaffney writes in the Los Angeles Times, no real disarmament of Iraq can occur without a regime-change there.

Click here for the White House page on President Bush’s visit to the Prague NATO summit.