US embassy cable - 03OTTAWA1605

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 OTTAWA 001605 
 
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:  G8; MIDDLE EAST; IRAQ; U.S. ECONOMIC POLICY 
 
G8 
1.   "We'd be better off with the G-Zero." 
Columnist William Watson noted in the conservative 
English-language daily the Montreal Gazette (6/3): "The 
big news story in France yesterday was the 
length of the handshake on Sunday when Jacques Chirac 
welcomed George W. Bush to the G8 summit. The French 
press considered it too short, even if it was followed 
a little later by a friendly pat on the back from Mr. 
Bush - a pat on the back with no concealed weapon, 
unlike the backstabbing the Americans feel  Mr. Chirac 
gave them over Iraq.... Whether in handshakes or 
meetings, Bush's preference is clearly for brevity. 
Thus he left the G8 sessions yesterday afternoon, just 
halfway through the agenda. This was widely regarded as 
a snub to Chirac, which it probably was, but it's also 
consistent with Bush's well-known impatience with 
talkfests. Loquacious Bill Clinton would have loved 48 
hours of meetings. Taciturn George W. Bush evidently 
did not.... With the U.S. skipping half the meeting, 
this year the G8 was the G7.5. It's a step in the right 
direction. If more members could be persuaded to do the 
same, we might eventually get down to the G-0. It's 
hard to believe the world would be worse." 
 
MIDDLE EAST 
2.   "Bush puts his prestige on the line" 
Editorial writer David Warren commented in the 
conservative National Post and the nationalist Ottawa 
Citizen (6/4): "...Those who do not grasp by now 
that the President means what he says may be fairly 
dismissed as impenetrable. Such commentators exist on 
both left and right, and indeed both ends of the 
political spectrum seem now to be convinced that Mr. 
Bush is, with Ariel Sharon in carriage, purposely 
advancing a `road map' so little different from the old 
failed Oslo process that he must be expecting 
it to fail, leaving Israel free, when it does, to 
settle matters by force. This is, however, a complete 
misreading of Mr. Bush. He may be foolish, but 
he is not cynical. He has put his money where his mouth 
was a sufficient number of consecutive times, and been 
sufficiently transparent about his intentions, to be 
relieved of the latter charge.... Notwithstanding, Mr. 
Bush is putting the credibility of the United States, 
and his own prestige, on the line. He is banking on the 
new leverage the United States has as a regional power 
in its own right - it has occupied Iraq - and on the 
cumulative effect of the trauma in the Arab world of 
watching Saddam 
Hussein's statue come down, and absorbing that 
occupation.... Israel most certainly risks getting 
burned, for the peace Mr. Bush seeks is regional not 
local.... This is a Herculean task: cleaning the Augean 
stables, changing the very nature of Arab politics. Mr. 
Bush believes it cannot be avoided, 
and he is right in the middle of it now." 
 
3.   "New credo" 
Jean-Marc Salvet, chief editorialist at the centrist Le 
Soleil, wrote (6/4): "Many pundits were wrong in 
believing George W. Bush would shy away from the 
Israeli-Palestinian conflict.... The world's first 
power has accepted the idea that a firm commitment on 
its part would increase the chances of reaching a 
political settlement in the Mid-East.... Nothing better 
illustrates the new American determination than the 
Aqaba summit where the Israeli and Palestinian prime 
ministers will meet President Bush.... The agreements 
in principle obtained so far are important but fragile. 
That is why Washington must see to it that the Road Map 
is applied and that its interlocutors do not deviate 
from it." 
 
IRAQ 
4.   "A just war regardless" 
Under the sub-heading, "Whether WMDs are found or not, 
the allies need offer no apologies for liberating 
Iraq," the conservative National Post opined 
(6/4): "...As Mr. Bush himself has plainly admitted, 
the war was always about more than WMDs. It was about 
creating a new political environment in the Middle 
East, destroying the cult of militant Arabism that kept 
the Palestinian-Israeli conflict simmering, 
extinguishing a possible nexus between rogue power and 
terrorism; and, perhaps, in the long term, 
democratizing the Arab world. Given that these are 
large, ambitious projects, the U.S. and British leaders 
would have had a difficult time using them as an 
explicit basis to justify war. Thus the two  government 
focused, perhaps overly so, on the threat of WMDs and 
links to al-Qaeda - which are simpler, more tangible 
themes. But over time, as the larger benefits of Iraq's 
liberation unfold, we are confident the paucity of WMDs 
found in the country will come to be regarded in the 
West as an insignificant footnote to the region's 
history - much as it already is to the many ordinary 
Iraqis freed of Saddam's tyranny." 
 
U.S. ECONOMIC POLICY 
5.   "U.S. manufacturing could rescue Canada." 
Columnist Jay Bryan observed in the nationalist Ottawa 
Citizen (6/3): "It's an obscure number, and much of the 
time justifiably so, but when the U.S. is faltering in 
its job as global economic locomotive, the Institute 
for Supply Management's measure of manufacturing 
health, best known as the ISM index, 
can become a critically important indicator of where 
the economy is going.... As the Canadian economy 
staggers under the weight of Toronto's SARS episode, 
Alberta's mad cow scare and a darkening domestic 
economic landscape, the importance of exports to the 
U.S. has become critical.... That's why the apparent 
revival in U.S. manufacturing couldn't be more 
welcome. Since Canada's rising interest rates and 
dollar are acting to squeeze our still-robust growth 
rate, a reviving U.S. economy is our best hope for a 
healthy economy this time next year." 
 
CELLUCCI