Free Republic

Wednesday August 20th, 2003, 17:42 Berlin also not sending any soldiers even after the attack on the UN Berlin (dpa) -- The Federal Government is not considering a German Armed Forces deployment even after the devastating attack on the UN headquarters in Baghdad, Iraq. The Federal Government explained in Berlin on Wednesday that the question never arose. In the opinion of the Union [CDU - lj], this refusal endangers the consent of the USA to a broader mandate by the United Nations. Coalition and opposition support a stronger role by the UN and spoke in dismay about the death of...

Iraq is surrounded by as many as 300,000 troops. Thousands of precision-guided missiles are aimed at Baghdad and other Iraqi cities. It is, as more than one observer has said this week, a watershed moment for everyone concerned; Saddam Hussein, the fractured United Nations, the President of the United States, the troops at the ready, and the Iraqi civilians. Jessica Tuchman Mathews has been taking this all in from her offices in the heart of Washington D.C. She is the president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (CEIP). The Endowment held a series of discussions on the Iraq situation...