US embassy cable - 03HARARE562

UNCLAS HARARE 000562 
 
SIPDIS 
 
DEPT FOR AF/PDPA FOR DALTON, MITCHELL AND SIMS 
NSC FOR JENDAYI FRAZER 
LONDON FOR GURNEYNS 
PARIS FOR NEARY 
NAIROBI FOR PFLAUMER 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PREL, KPAO, KMDR, ZI 
SUBJECT: MEDIA REACTION IRAQ; HARARE 
 
 
  1.   Under headline "End of the road for U.N. system" the 
      pro-government daily "The Daily Mirror" used its March 19 
      editorial to accuse the United States and Britain of 
      usurping United Nations authority over the Iraq crisis. 
      ".the U.N. system will never be the same again after the 
      U.S.A. and Britain openly disregarded not only the majority 
      of the U.N. Security Council members, but the voices of all 
      those people who demonstrated against war in their millions 
      all over the world," the editorial said.  Excerpts: 
 
  2.   ". . .The past one month has clearly shown the world 
      how the power of the U.N. has been eroded. . .  It 
      is sad that, after so much hard work of inspections 
      and weapons destruction, the U.N. weapons inspectors 
      led by Hans Blix were not given a chance to complete 
      their work.  There was so much hope that Blix and 
      his team were going to accomplish the disarmament of 
      Iraq without a single shot being fired.  Now, it 
      appears as if the United States President was using 
      the U.N. inspectors to point out whatever weapons 
      Iraq possesses, and neutralize them to allow 
      American forces to invade Iraq with minimum 
      resistance.  It is now clear that the U.S. President 
      was never really serious about U.N. diplomacy.  It 
      is also ironic that in his war speech, Bush asks the 
      U.N. to continue with its work and provide 
      humanitarian assistance to Iraq.  True, some U.N. 
      agencies will not stand by and leave Iraqis to die 
      after the expected bombardment by American and 
      British forces.  But the U.N. system will never be 
      the same again after the U.S.A. and Britain openly 
      disregarded not only the majority of the U.N. 
      Security Council members, but the voices of all 
      those people who demonstrated against war in their 
      millions all over the world. . . ." 
 
SULLIVAN