Europe shifts to post-war focus

At odds with the US and deeply divided among themselves, Europeans opposed to going to war with Saddam Hussein are now scrambling to play a role in shaping postwar Iraq.

For months France, Germany and Russia - key European countries on the UN Security Council - have been trying to stop President George Bush from invading Iraq, severely straining the transatlantic alliance.

Now, Europe is looking beyond the war with hopes of ensuring a role for the UN and Europe in Iraq's reconstruction - and rebuilding relations with Washington. The Europeans also hope to restore the relevance of the Security Council, which Bush has accused of failing to live up to its responsibilities.

The foreign ministers of Germany, France and Russia planned to address the Security Council yesterday on wartime humanitarian relief. "We will provide humanitarian aid, although we regret its necessity," EU commissioner Chris Patten said Tuesday.

Meanwhile, the US and its major Eauropean ally, Britain, are drafting a UN proposal to use Iraqi oil proceeds to pay for humanitarian relief during a war, the AP reported yesterday. And Britain is working with Washington on UN resolutions to reconstruct a postwar Iraq, British Prime Minister Tony Blair said, as "an important part of bringing the international community back together again."

French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin says that the US can win the war alone, but it needs the international community to win the peace. "We think the United Nations cannot be ignored and will be at the heart of the management of Iraq after Saddam Hussein," he told Europe 1 radio this week.

Germany's official policy, has been not to speak about the postwar scenario, since this, officials say, would be to give up on the last hope for peace. But behind the scenes the discussion is heated. German diplomats, according to a report in the weekly Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung, are weighing a major financial contribution toward rebuilding Iraq to "buy their way back into the German-American relations," the paper said. The paper cited a document prepared by Germany's UN ambassador Gunter Pleuger that suggests Berlin and other powers on the Security Council gave up trying to reach a compromise with the US, hoping instead that after the war, the US would be more willing to work with the UN. A spokesman for the Foreign Ministry declined to comment on the report, but said it reflects a "snapshot" of the discussion.

One of Germany's reasons for opposing military action against Iraq has been fear that a war would destabilize the entire Middle East. Karsten Voigt, coordinator of US-German relations in the Foreign Ministry, says Germany hopes the UN will play a strong role in postwar Iraq to prevent such results. "We are very skeptical that stability in the region will develop in the way the US seems to believe," he said.

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