US embassy cable - 03OTTAWA2388

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 OTTAWA 002388 
 
SIPDIS 
 
STATE FOR WHA/CAN, WHA/PDA 
WHITE HOUSE PASS NSC/WEUROPE, NSC/WHA 
 
E.O. 12958:  N/A 
TAGS: KPAO, KMDR, OIIP, OPRC, CA, TFUS01, TFUS02, TFUS03 
SUBJECT:  MEDIA REACTION: IRAQ; AFRICA 
 
 
IRAQ 
1.   "Rebuilding Iraq remains crucial" 
The leading Globe and Mail opined (8/21): "Horrific as 
Tuesday's bomb attack was on Iraq's United Nations 
headquarters, no one who has followed events in 
that country can be surprised that matters have taken a 
turn for the worse. From the moment the United States 
attacked Saddam Hussein, it was clear that 
handling the instability caused by his departure might 
be as difficult as dealing with Iraq while he was in 
power, if not more so. The question is what Washington 
and the international community should do about it.... 
The bombing of the UN clearly marks an escalation of 
anti-American and anti-Western tendencies in Iraq.... 
This too should come as little surprise. It was all but 
inevitable that a host of anti-U.S. forces both inside 
and outside Iraq would seize on any opportunity to 
imperil the reconstruction effort, in order to make the 
West look as bad as possible and to drive disaffected 
Iraqis into the arms of the militant Islamist movement. 
There are any number of countries nearby with 
extremists to spare, including Syria, Iran and Saudi 
Arabia. That is precisely why the United States and 
others involved in the effort to rebuild Iraq should 
stay the course, if not redouble their efforts to bring 
about stability as quickly as possible. Any sign of 
weakness - any sign, for example, that President George 
W. Bush is wavering as a result of simplistic 
criticisms that his country is in for 'another 
Vietnam'...will only encourage anti-U.S. forces in Iraq 
and elsewhere.... Rather than pull staff or troops out, 
the United States needs to provide more of both, and 
other countries need to help as part of a broad UN 
effort.... Rebuilding countries - or, rather, helping a 
beaten and starving populace to rebuild them - is not 
easy. It took years in Japan and even longer in 
Germany, and cost billions of dollars to finance. The 
reconstruction is likely to take just as long in both 
Iraq and Afghanistan. 
American and international forces don't want to take 
too much on themselves for fear of being seen as 
occupiers. Yet if they don't do enough, quickly enough, 
they will be seen as uncaring. More than anything, they 
cannot give up." 
 
2.   "Sometimes it is 'us' and 'them'" 
Columnist Marcus Gee observed in the leading Globe and 
Mail (8/21): "If Tuesday's bombings in Jerusalem and 
Baghdad did anything, they served to remind us what we 
are up against. Any act of terrorism is savage, 
senseless, cowardly - the past couple of years have 
exhausted our language of condemnation. But these were 
acts of particular barbarism.... The United Nations 
says it will stay, despite Tuesday's attack, and that 
is good. However, Washington has had trouble persuading 
other countries to join a multinational force that 
would help relieve U.S. troops. Those countries should 
step up to help. The United States, in return, should 
be more willing to share interim control of Iraq with 
the UN and other international 
partners. In the Holy Land, confronting terrorism means 
taking a still harder line with countries in the region 
that support violence, such as Syria, Iran and Sudan. 
It means supporting Israel when it acts in its own 
defence to combat terrorist organizations. It means 
pressing the Palestinian leadership to crack down on 
terrorist groups. It means encouraging both 
sides to move toward a negotiated settlement that would 
help undermine support for terrorism. Just as 
important, confronting terrorists requires clear 
thinking about us and about them. And, yes, sometimes, 
there is an 'us' and a 'them.' This is one of those 
times. The fight we are waging is nothing less than the 
fight between civilization and barbarism. If Tuesday's 
murderous bombings did not prove that, then they proved 
nothing." 
 
3.   "A truckful of evil" 
The conservative National Post editorialized (8/21): 
"The ongoing guerrilla war against U.S. troops in Iraq 
provides ample proof that, contrary to the Polyannish 
predictions offered by some American officials, a 
substantial number of Iraqis are bristling at the 
presence of foreign troops in their land. But Tuesday's 
truck bombing of the United Nations Iraqi headquarters 
in Baghdad...shows that the United States is dealing 
with something far more pathological than militant 
nationalism. The function of United Nations 
personnel in Iraq is to provide aid and alleviate 
hardship. Yet the terrorists who struck on Tuesday were 
willing to slaughter these good Samaritans merely so 
they could discredit the United States and its ability 
to maintain order.... Those who delight in skewering 
the U.S. war effort have pointed out that Iraq is home 
to more terrorists now, in the wake of 
its liberation, than when it suffered under Saddam 
Hussein's jackboot. That's true - but it misses the 
point. The perceived threat from Iraq, as we 
have noted often in this space, was not merely garden- 
variety terrorism - it was the intersection of 
terrorism, rogue power and weapons of mass 
destruction.... Iraq is now a magnet for Arab and 
Muslim terrorists worldwide.... Washington should warn 
Tehran, Riyadh and Damascus that if they wage war 
against the United States through terrorist proxies, 
they will be treated accordingly. Another crucial 
ingredient in any terrorist struggle is the support of 
the local civilian population. Despite the terrorists' 
best efforts, the United States must win over as many 
Iraqis as possible by providing them with a better life 
- which means food, clean water, dependable electric 
power and as much security as circumstances permit. A 
homegrown army and police force should also be trained 
and deployed as soon as possible. In blowing up foreign 
soldiers and aid workers, terrorists can hide behind 
the conceit that they are martyrs and patriots. Once 
they are forced to confront Iraqis in uniform, it will 
become apparent to all that 
they are merely murderous thugs bent on denying the 
country a better future." 
 
4.   "Attack in Iraq must be answered by greater 
international effort" 
The left-of-center Vancouver Sun commented (8/20): "It 
is a struggle to imagine what was going through the 
minds of the terrorists who engineered the massive 
truck bomb attack on the United Nations compound in 
Baghdad on Tuesday afternoon. What did they imagine 
they would accomplish by killing and wounding dozens of 
civilians whose only purpose was to help to rebuild 
an Iraq stricken by war and decades of brutal 
dictatorship? The question may contain the seeds of the 
answer. The purpose was perhaps a coldly  conceived, 
brutal act of terror against a soft target and aimed 
with malign forethought at the vanguard of civilian 
reconstructors. The message to the UN and to 
countries contemplating involvement in the rebuilding 
of Iraq is that they take their lives in their hands 
undertaking such work.... Iraq needs a functional, not 
necessarily perfect, level of security behind which the 
work of reconstruction can go on. And essential to that 
task must be a recognition by Washington that, like it 
or not, it is in the business of nation-building in 
Iraq. So far Washington has envisaged only a highly 
restricted role for the UN in the work of 
reconstruction. The attack on the UN in Baghdad should 
give Washington stark forewarning of the quagmire that 
awaits it if the terrorists succeed in isolating the 
coalition from the international community. Equally, 
the international community - Canada included - must 
recognize this attack on it cannot be allowed to serve 
the bombers' purpose." 
 
5.   "The tragedy of denial" 
Under the sub-heading, "A truck bomb forces the United 
Nations to confront terrorism," the nationalist Ottawa 
Citizen observed (8/20): "In the weeks after the Sept. 
11, 2001 attacks on the United States, the United 
Nations Security Council passed various resolutions 
calling on its members to cut off funding and support 
for terrorist groups. Nevertheless, the 15-member 
council could not bring itself to define terrorism. Now 
that the UN itself has been attacked by terrorists, 
perhaps it can.... The attack, like the one that 
followed a few hours later in Israel, is to be 
condemned, and, no doubt, there will be Security 
Council resolutions to that effect. But will the UN 
grasp its deeper significance and its lesson?  It's a 
sad irony that the UN has long been criticized as the 
patron of illiberal Arab-Muslim regimes.... Why would 
terrorists attack an institution that has been such a 
self-abasing apologist for Arab dictatorships? It is 
not hard to discern the 'mind' and the motive behind 
the Baghdad bombing. On one level, this attack, like 
the recent acts of sabotage on oil and water pipelines, 
is intended to undermine the efforts of the U.S. and 
its partners to foster a stable and democratic society 
in Iraq. The terrorists want to show that the U.S. 
cannot provide the security Iraqis need to feel before 
they actively turn away from 
Saddam's lingering hold on the country. But there is 
also a deeper significance to this attack. Even though 
the UN has become an instrument of Third World 
appeasement, it is also regarded by Muslim extremists 
to embody western ideas of pluralism, human rights and 
cosmopolitanism.... The Islamists may have no rational 
political program beyond nihilism, but blowing up the 
UN headquarters, and killing a man like Mr. de Mello, 
who was once the UN's human rights commissioner, 
suggests a hatred for modernity, tolerance and 
globalism. How should the UN respond to this 
'rejection'? It can start by having the courage to 
define terrorism.... The UN, for so many years, ignored 
or minimized the crimes of states known to sponsor 
terror. Perhaps the UN wanted simply to be an honest 
broker. Instead, it became weak and ineffective, and 
all the while still despised by the very people it 
hoped to appease. 
 
AFRICA 
6.   "No tears for a brute" 
Under the sub-heading, "Idi Amin's legacy was to 
entrench the cult of African strongmen," the 
nationalist Ottawa Citizen opined (8/21): "...Uganda 
was in bad shape when Mr. Amin took control, but he 
took his country to new depths. In the process, he 
entrenched a tradition that haunts the entire continent 
to this day, the cult of African strongmen - strongmen 
who plunder their countries' natural wealth for their 
personal gratification, all the while repressing their 
own people with sadistic, almost bestial glee.... Other 
African strongmen such as Charles Taylor and Robert 
Mugabe are spiritual descendants of Mr. Amin. Mr. 
Mugabe in particular, through his persecution of 
Zimbabwe's white farmers, has carried on Mr. Amin's 
legacy of Afro-centric racism.... Today, Robert Mugabe 
continues to confiscate white-owned farms and 
distribute them to his cronies, just as Mr. Amin 
confiscated property belonging to non-black Ugandans. 
Mr. Mugabe is 
condemning Zimbabwe to poverty, just as Mr. Amin did 
Uganda. There is a lesson here, and some hope. Mr. 
Amin's long exile was morally unsatisfying, 
but the best thing for Ugandans. And last week, 
Liberian dictator Charles Taylor surrendered power and 
went into exile in Nigeria. Even Mr. Mugabe is losing 
control, as his African neighbours begin to lose 
patience with him. The developed world has done much, 
and could always do more, to help Africa, but 
ultimately it is up to Africans themselves to stop 
producing military strongmen who plunder rather than 
govern." 
 
CELLUCCI