US embassy cable - 03OTTAWA2174

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 OTTAWA 002174 
 
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 
 
IRAQ 
1.   "Questions remaining about the war on Iraq" 
The leading Globe and Mail opined (7/26): "...The 
months since military victory have been difficult, but 
hardly disastrous. U.S. soldiers have good reason to be 
dismayed by extensions of their tours of duty. Indeed, 
U.S. planning for postwar Iraq was stunningly 
inadequate. But the recent establishment of a 25-member 
Iraqi Governing Council, composed of credible 
leaders representative of the country's religious and 
ethnic communities and including female 
representation, is a major step toward the devolution 
of power. And steps are being taken to reopen schools 
and hospitals, and create civil defence forces. It is 
not a shambolic occupation. Furthermore, the injection 
of U.S. might into the heart of the Middle East appears 
to be paying dividends regionally. The road map to 
Israeli-Palestinian peace has new impetus, and radical 
regimes such as Iran and Syria are more receptive to 
fighting international terrorism.... The Bush 
administration's controversial doctrine of pre-emptive 
attack requires a credible assessment of risk. Mr. 
Hussein did have illegal weaponry, at least not so long 
ago. Of that there is no doubt. And the world will 
eventually know the truth about it. But if no live 
weapons or weapons programs are found, there will be 
good reason for the international community to question 
Washington even more closely the next time it sounds 
the alarm - about Iran, say, or North Korea. 
Still, is there clear evidence that the U.S. and 
British governments deliberately lied in a rush to war? 
There is not, at least as yet.... But it 
is wrong to damn the Bush administration's commitment 
in Iraq, short of new damning revelations about its pre- 
war actions. The same is true for Mr. Blair. Much 
should still flow from this risky enterprise, and for 
the good." 
 
2.   "Bush boys blow it again in post-war Iraq" 
Editorial page editor emeritus Haroon Siddiqui 
commented in the liberal Toronto Star (7/27): "If 
deception and unilateralism characterized America's 
war on Iraq, then navet, incompetence and, 
increasingly, desperation mark its shaky occupation of 
that troubled land. The killings of Saddam Hussein's 
sons, the exhibition of grisly photos of their corpses 
and the macabre reconstruction of their shattered 
bodies for public display are only the latest indices 
of the quagmire America has got itself into. It is a 
sad day when the U.S. secretary of defence has to fend 
off suggestions that he may have placed America in the 
e 
same league as the Taliban.... It is good that Uday and 
Qusay are accounted for. It is bad that they won't be 
around to be tried for crimes against humanity.... 
Besides Saddam loyalists, some Islamists and thousands 
of angry laid-off soldiers and police officers, the 
populace is clearly most upset with the Americans for 
botching the occupation. Despite improvements in recent 
days, essential services are yet to be restored to even 
pre-war levels. But the real sleeper issue is 
cultural: American soldiers know how to kill but not 
how to make and keep peace.... But America cannot do it 
all alone. It needs the United Nations, yet the Bush 
administration is trying to do an end-run around the 
world body, as it did in waging war. It is ready to 
internationalize the Iraq operation but not U.N.-ize 
it.... There is also an urgent need to restore 
American credibility, at home and abroad, starting with 
the narrative on weapons of mass destruction.... There 
is also the little issue of widespread American bombing 
of Iraq prior to the war. It was presented as continued 
enforcement of the two no-fly zones. It was nothing of 
the sort.... It is vital for the world that America 
succeeds in Iraq. It is vital for America that the Bush 
administration fails in its attempts to obfuscate the 
truth." 
 
3.   "Doubting Thomases" 
Editorialist Mario Roy wrote in the centrist La Presse 
(7/26): "Should the pictures have been published?... 
Let's turn the question around. What would have been 
the reaction of the Iraqis or of the press and of 
public opinion in the West if no pictures had been 
showed?... Armchair quarterbacks always win the game. 
Which bring s us to the question: Can we always accuse 
the Americans of being both too weak and too strong at 
the same time? Too interventionist and not prepared 
enough to act? That is one of the questions raised by 
the Congressional Report on the events of September 
11.... Everybody knows that for twenty years the CIA, 
once accused of ruling the planet is in fact a paper 
tiger. An over-bureaucratized, comfy, under high 
surveillance agency, much less efficient than the 
Israeli, secret services. Or even those of the Cubans 
or East Germans during the Cold War. IN short it is the 
super weakness of the super power." 
 
CELLUCCI