Backpedaling on Iraq
The week's news at a glance.
Berlin
A scant week after German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder won re-election on an antiwar platform, his top advisers have already begun talking of a policy reversal. Schröder eked out a victory by appealing to the pacifism that dominates political thought in postwar Germany. He denounced U.S. plans to invade Iraq and topple Saddam Hussein as “adventurism.” Now that he’s won the election, though, his Social Democrats say they will support a war if they see any new evidence that Saddam is building weapons of mass destruction. “If there is in fact such a highly dangerous, highly explosive situation in Iraq,” said foreign policy spokesman Gert Weisskirchen this week, “then we must reconsider.”
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