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LONDON: Europe is getting increasingly uncomfortable with the unilateral insistence of the US on solving the Iraqi conflict militarily. European nations fear US military action against Saddam Hussain could divide the world which is quite united against international terrorism at the moment.
This unilateral US insistence on removing Saddam from power through military means has put Britain in a difficult situation. Britain is a traditional ally of America and wants to stick to the same policy but, as part of Europe, it cannot afford to annoy its next door neighbours. The government in London is under pressure not to support the recent stance on Iraq.
Many in Europe believe that the entire Middle East is being destabilized to suit American preferences for political change in Iraq. And it is widely believed that any such action could be counter-productive in the Middle East and, as a result, the national interest of the Western world and those of America itself could be damaged.
Saudi Arabia and a number of Middle-eastern nations have already expressed their strong opposition to such an action. The Saudis have denied the use of the Sultan air base near Riyadh for any possible attack on Iraq. A political crisis is looming in Jordan as a result of US demands to use Jordan as a possible staging area in a war against Iraq. The Turkish government is also under pressure not to allow its land for use in an American offensive against Iraq.
The British media is getting more and more hostile towards the current US unilateral stance on Iraq and which is a sign that this time it would be very difficult for the British government to fully support an allout military attack on Iraq. Most Europeans are in favour of a political change in Iraq but they do not want this change to be brought about by an allout American military attack. It is hard to believe that without the British and European support the US would go for an attack on Iraq.
WAR ON TERROR: A report by the House of Commons Defence Committee put the British government into an embarrassing position after it revealed on Wednesday that the nation is not capable of coping with a terrorist attack on the scale of the Sept 11’s. The report has sent shock waves throughout Great Britain, and the government has come under much pressure to take more effective steps to make up for the “real deficiencies” in the ability of the civil authorities to deal with a major terrorist incident. The Commons Defence Committee strongly criticized the government’s response to the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, complaining of inadequate central coordination and direction.
The committee also urged the government to establish a police National Counter-Terrorism Force to take the lead in anti-terrorism operations within the UK.
Labour MP Bruce George, the head of the committee, said: “We do believe that there has been a lack of grip and direction on the part of central government. The report highlighted the vulnerability of the UK to a terrorist attack, using shipping containers to smuggle in weapons of mass destruction. The committee did endorse the decision to give ministers rather than officials the responsibility for authorizing the shooting down of a civil airliner in the event of a Sept 11-style suicide attack.
But the authorities say Britain is fully prepared for any sorts of terrorist attack and only recently the government had announced plans to counter the threat of international terrorism with new hi-tech warfare techniques.
The government has made plans to create a so-called “network-centric capability”, characterized by high-speed electronic intelligence gathering, enabling military commanders to respond as soon as a threat is identified. The authorities says that Britain’s armed services are significantly being overhauled, “aimed at hitting terrorists in their own backyards” before they could strike. The British defence secretary, Jeoff Hoon, says, the post-Sept 11 policy would be based on the capacity to “detect, decide and destroy”.
EXTREMIST GROUPS: From time to time the British media has been reporting that Britain is home to a large number of Islamic extremist groups from the Middle East. One latest revelation came to light recently when a senior security officials told The Sunday Times that at least 3, 000 British-based Islamic extremists have been trained in Al Qaeda and Taliban camps in Afghanistan over the past 10 years. If this figure is true, it is no doubt a very big potential security threat to Britain.
Britain has widely been accused of providing a logistics base for Islamic extremists. The post-Sept 11 raids in London and other British towns and arrests of a number the suspected terrorists have shown that the UK does appear to be far more significant than previously thought. Letters found in Al Qaeda camps in Afghanistan have reportedly revealed Osama’s men had links with British Islamic organizations dating back to 1998.
There were even plans by some terrorists, apparently British, to bomb London. The month-by-month developments following the Sept 11 attacks have revealed that Britain had been a safe haven for extremists. Many Islamic extremist groups have been so freely operating in the UK that even many Muslim countries would not grant them that much freedom. These disclosures increased pressure on the government to crack down harder on the extremist Islamist groups and as a result, Britain is no more a safe place for these extremist groups from the ME.
