February 16, 2003	Sunday	Zul Hijjah 14, 1423

PARIS, Feb 15: Richard Perle, an adviser to US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and one of the most influential hawks in the Bush administration, says that “it’s not in France’s best interest to construct Europe into a counterweight against the United States”.

Interviewed in Saturday’s issue of French daily Le Figaro, Mr Perle, one of the strongest advocates of an allied attack against Iraq, warned the French against “going too far in their desire to want to build Europe into an opposition force against the United States”.

“True, between allies we always can’t be in agreement about everything. But then to go so far as want to devise a strategy of positioning (Europe) as a counterweight (to the United States) is destructive and useless,” Mr Perle said in the interview.

“Especially,” he continued, “because the European Union doesn’t need to have to define itself against anybody or anything to bring about its cohesion.”

“What we would like to hear in Washington these days,” he notes, “is that President Chirac is not in the process of constructing the European Union into an adversary of the United States. Because if that were the case, we would have to think of going our separate ways.”