August 18, 2002	Sunday	Jamadi-us-Saani 8, 1423

WASHINGTON, Aug 17: The United States has expressed official displeasure about critical comments made by German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder regarding a possible US-led war on Iraq, the New York Times reported on Saturday.

The newspaper wrote that US ambassador to Germany Daniel Coats went to the chancellor’s office in Berlin this week to relay Washington’s unhappiness about recent remarks by Schroeder describing the proposed US pre-emptive strike against Baghdad “an adventure”.

Washington “is not happy at the accusation that it is not consulting with its allies” or that Bush is “a trigger-happy Texan,” one senior American official told the Times.

It was “a highly unusual event between such close allies,” one unnamed official told the daily.

Coats did not speak directly to Schroeder — a choice made by the United States in order to keep its criticism more general and low-key, officials told the Times.

Last week, Schroeder told German media that an attack on Iraq could “destroy the international coalition against terrorism” formed after the September 11 attacks on the United States.

“The Middle East needs peace, not a new war,” Schroeder said.

Schroeder was the first major European leader to publicly state his country’s refusal to join any military intervention aimed at toppling Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.

Nevertheless, the chancellor’s comments reflect general European doubts about the urgency and wisdom of an attack on Iraq in the absence of intelligence showing that he currently has nuclear weapons or that he has aided the Al Qaeda network.

ARMS INSPECTION: Iraq again opened the door on saturday to a possible return of UN arms inspectors, but kept up its anti-US rhetoric in riposte to Washington’s determination to oust President Saddam Hussein.

The official media returned to the attack over allegations that Baghdad has developed prohibited weapons.

“The US lies about Iraq are lame because they are not based on any reasonable logic,” Al-Jumhuriya said. “No one wants to hear them and the numbers supporting them has fallen even in the United States and Britain.”

The daily said Iraq’s invitations to the chief UN weapons inspector Hans Blix and members of the US Congress to visit Baghdad for disarmament talks “have confirmed the correctness of Iraq’s position.”

Al-Iraq dimissed the accusation about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction as “unjust fabrication by the evil American administration which is trying to build a new coalition to give legitimacy to its threats against Iraq.

The influential Babel put the spotlight on the “scatter-brained” US President George Bush and added a menacing tone.

“He believes that others can be the targets of his sophisticated weapons, but has he forgotten that his own country is a frail target which can be easily reached and with lesser means, as the September 11 attacks showed?” asked Babel, run by President Saddam Hussein’s elder son Uday.—AFP