SPEAKING OF RIBBENTROPP... :

Germany Announces New Shift Away From U.S. Over Iraq (STEVEN ERLANGER, Aug. 30, 2002, NY Times)

If the United States attacks Iraq, Germany will pull out its specialized nuclear, chemical and biological warfare unit from Kuwait, the German defense minister said in an interview published today.

The conservative challenger in the electoral fight to be Germany's next chancellor, Edmund Stoiber, said today that he would do the same in the case of a unilateral American attack on Iraq, but only after consultations with European allies.

The new German position marks another shift away from Washington in the heat of a German election campaign that the chancellor, Gerhard Schroder, is trying to turn toward questions of peace rather than unemployment.

The unit, consisting of six specialized Fuchs tanks and 52 soldiers, is designed to detect the use or presence of chemical, biological and nuclear weapons, and then try to destroy them. The unit was sent to Kuwait as part of Germany's contribution to Operation Enduring Freedom, the war on Al Qaeda and the Taliban that followed the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States.

Saddam and Schroder...perfect together.... Posted by Orrin Judd at August 30, 2002 1:41 PM