December 22, 2002
U.S. Straining Diplomatic Relations
According to The New York Times, the latest push for war by the U.S. government is isolating it from its allies, including even Britain."After the weapons inspectors' briefing on Thursday, Russia argued that the Bush administration was out of line in unilaterally saying that there had been a 'material breach,'" said the Times. "The Russian ambassador to the United Nations, Sergey Lavrov, insisted that only the Council as a whole was entitled to make such a judgment, and only on the basis of reports from the weapons inspectors, not intelligence from national governments."
The Russian ambassador called the Bush administration on the baseless accusations that few in the U.S. have the courage to mention. The Times quotes Lavrov as saying, "To say, `We know, but we wouldn't tell you,' is not something that is persuasive, frankly speaking. This is not a poker game, when you hold your cards and call others' bluff."