AMBUSHING THE AMBUSHER

Worm fury at Blair ambush (Trevor Kavanaugh, 6/02/03, The Sun uk)

JACQUES Chirac barely concealed his fury last night as he walked into an ambush by America and Britain over Iraq.

The French president was furious as Tony Blair and US leader George Bush hijacked his prestigious G8 summit and put weapons of mass destruction at the top of the agenda.

Seething Mr Chirac greeted Mr Bush with a frosty smile, a short handshake and a curt word of welcome to Evian in the shadow of the French Alps. [...]

Mr Chirac had planned to use the summit of the world?s most powerful industrial nations to embarrass the US over issues such as the environment and pollution.

But in a carefully planned pincer movement Mr Blair and Mr Bush stoked the campaign against rogue states, weapons of mass destruction, or WMD, and ?dirty bombs?.

Mr Blair said as he flew into France: ?We must state clearly that the spread of WMD and international terrorism is a pre-eminent threat to international security.

?This will be fleshed out in an action plan, in particular against radioactive source security. More stringent controls are needed on legitimate sources such as X-ray machines to stop them falling into the hands of terrorists.?

Boy, these guys never learn, eh? Jacques Chretien was furious at President Bush for hijacking the last one of these dog-and-pony shows and changing the topic from Africa to terror. Did Mr. Chirac think he'd be treated better?

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US launches surprise weapons initiative (James Harding, James Blitz and Robert Graham, June 1 2003, Financial Times)

The US and its allies in the Iraq war on Sunday launched an initiative to curb the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, in a move set to become a test of the transatlantic relationship.

As leaders of the world's biggest industrialised nations met in France for a summit aimed at boosting confidence in the global economy, President George W. Bush injected a surprise element into what had been expected to be an informal discussion on WMD. US and UK officials brushed aside growing concern about the failure to find significant evidence of WMD in Iraq and said they were seeking an international agreement to intercept ships and aeroplanes suspected of carrying shipments of arms or nuclear, chemical and biological cargo.

The move came as Mr Bush issued a strong warning to North Korea to give up its nuclear ambitions, as tensions rose in east Asia following a naval clash between the two Korean states.

British officials say there is broad consensus within the Group of Eight industrialised nations about the need to agree an "action plan" on Monday to combat the spread of WMD.

However, Mr Bush's new plan - the so-called Proliferation Security Initiative - appeared to have taken France, the G8 hosts, by surprise. It looked set to test the willingness of France and Germany, which strongly opposed the Iraq war - to work with Washington.

Posted by Orrin Judd at June 2, 2003 1:06 AM