Germany Guarantees US Overflight Rights, Expels 4 Iraqi Diplomats

Sky News UK ^ | March 19, 2003 | breaking wire report

[ewing]

Just got the word, no story up on the website yet.

[PhiKapMom]

Looks like the French coalition is beginning to crumble!

[ewing]

Both the French and the Germans have offered belated support when/if chemical weapons are used, what pansies..

[Wait4Truth]

Looks like the French coalition is beginning to crumble!

LOL! I would say so! I predict a year from now Chirac will be a very unpopular figure except with the communists.

[ewing]

Chirac is the Neville Chamberlain of the 21st Century.

[tessalu]

Is Germany going to wake up and smell the coffee?

[kabar]

You can thank Rumsfeld who suggested publically we need to have a complete review of US forces stationed in Europe--in terms of numbers and location. Repositioning the approximately 70,000 US troops in Germany somewhere else or reducing the numbers has a major economic effect on a country with an unemployment rate of over 10 percent and suffering economic stagnation. Moreover, there are still many Germans who value a close relationship with the US. They remember us as the protectors and defenders of their liberty during the Cold War. Politically, the CDU can use this issue to get back in control of the country.

[anymouse]

It looks like the Axis of Weasils is beating a hasty retreat with their tails between their legs, in the face of real men of purpose acting instead of debating. Some of us predicted this would happen.

[Capt. Tom]

We could have used those overflight rights in the early 40s. Would have saved a lot of Americans lives. -Tom

[Pearls Before Swine]

Both the French and the Germans have offered belated support when/if chemical weapons are used, what pansies..

...the chemical weapons France and Germany supplied the key ingredients for..

"We didn't know he was going to use those ingredients for THAT." I can hear it now...

[Mamzelle]

The unilateral actions taken by Nouveau Algiers (the country formerly known as France) may well leave it isolated internationally.

[CyberAnt]

They better - because we have thousands of soldiers stationed there and it would be political suicide to have us leave, as well as economic disaster to the country.

I do suspect we will move part of our forces, only because we have been looking at moving them for some time to an area closer to the middle east. Whether this will LOOK like retribution to Germany - I'm sure the media will make a lot of it.

[AxelPaulsenJr]

I am reminded of the story of the Pan American pilot who had landed in Frankfurt during the early sixties. The pilot was having trouble navigating the airport's taxi ways.

This prompted a smart assed comment from the German controller in the airport tower: "Pan Am such and such, have you never been to Frankfurt?"

To which the Pam Am pilot replied, "Well, actually yes I have been here before. But that time I didn't land, I just droped my bomb load and flew home."