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Carter Scolds "Subservient" Blair
CAIRO – Former US president Jimmy Carter opened his salvos at British Prime Minister Tony Blair on Sunday, August26 , for being "so compliant and subservient" to US President George W. Bush, and questioning Bush's pre-emptive war doctrine and his Iraq invasion.
"It's a shameful and pitiful state of affairs, and I hold your British prime minister to be substantially responsible for being so compliant and subservient," Carter told the Sunday Telegraph newspaper as he promoted his new book "Faith and Freedom".
Carter, the winner of the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize, said he has been surprised and "extremely disappointed" with Blair's behavior.
"I think that, more than any other person in the world, the prime minister could have had a moderating influence on Washington, and he has not," said the81 -year-old peace icon.
Carter admitted he remains baffled by the apparent contrast between Blair's private remarks and his public utterances.
"I really believe the reports of former leaders who were present in conversations between Blair and Bush that Blair has expressed private opinions contrary to some of the public policies that he has adopted in subservience," he said.
Blair was recently mocked by British media as a US poodle after an off-the-cuff chat with Bush over a G 8lunch was accidentally broadcast.
The British media pored over the text of the conversation, saying it cast Blair in a subservient role and showed the unequal nature of Britain's much-vaunted "special relationship" with the US.
More recently, many Labour backbench MPs were deeply unhappy with Blair's refusal to break with Bush by calling for an immediate ceasefire when the Israeli war on Lebanon was at its height.
A Guardian/ICM poll showed last month that the large majority of Britons opposed the Blair-Bush political marriage and wanted a divorce and independence from the US.
No Pre-emptive
Had he still been president, Carter says he would have never considered invading Iraq in2003 .
"I would never have ordered it."
The former president said the US had never before had an administration that "would endorse pre-emptive war - that is a basic policy of going to war against another country even though our own security was not directly threatened."
More
http://www.islamonline.net/English/News/2006-08/27/02.shtml
Carter, the winner of the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize, said he has been surprised and "extremely disappointed" with Blair's behavior.
"I think that, more than any other person in the world, the prime minister could have had a moderating influence on Washington, and he has not," said the81 -year-old peace icon.
Carter admitted he remains baffled by the apparent contrast between Blair's private remarks and his public utterances.
"I really believe the reports of former leaders who were present in conversations between Blair and Bush that Blair has expressed private opinions contrary to some of the public policies that he has adopted in subservience," he said.
Blair was recently mocked by British media as a US poodle after an off-the-cuff chat with Bush over a G 8lunch was accidentally broadcast.
The British media pored over the text of the conversation, saying it cast Blair in a subservient role and showed the unequal nature of Britain's much-vaunted "special relationship" with the US.
More recently, many Labour backbench MPs were deeply unhappy with Blair's refusal to break with Bush by calling for an immediate ceasefire when the Israeli war on Lebanon was at its height.
A Guardian/ICM poll showed last month that the large majority of Britons opposed the Blair-Bush political marriage and wanted a divorce and independence from the US.
No Pre-emptive
Had he still been president, Carter says he would have never considered invading Iraq in2003 .
"I would never have ordered it."
The former president said the US had never before had an administration that "would endorse pre-emptive war - that is a basic policy of going to war against another country even though our own security was not directly threatened."
More
http://www.islamonline.net/English/News/2006-08/27/02.shtml
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