Conservatives Criticize Schröder’s Rejection of U.S. Proposal

Christian Democratic politicians have said Germany’s relationship with the United States was not improved by its sharp rejection of the American proposals on Thursday.

CDU leader Angela Merkel said Chancellor Schröder acted too quickly in taking less than 24 hours to reject the U.S. plan. Merkel had criticized Schröder's firm declaration last summer that Germany would not take any part in a war against Iraq, saying it had limited Germany's diplomatic leverage and hurt its relations with the U.S.

"And here we have another one of these moves, where things are laid down very quickly," she told reporters. "I don't like it."

Neither did her foreign policy spokesman, Friedbert Pflüger, who told the Rheinische Post newspaper: "It’d be in Germany’s best interests not to throw new broadsides in Washington’s direction.“

The relationship between the U.S. and its traditional allies France and Germany has been sorely tested by the war in Iraq, which Berlin and Paris staunchly opposed. This new rebuff of the Americans could widen the chasm that has already formed between the old friends. According to Pflüger, it would be wiser if Gerhard Schröder and Jacques Chirac found a diplomatic way to inform Washington of their reservations, “instead of once again presenting this public coordinated action.”

Proposals not enough

The two leaders announced on Friday from the eastern German city of Dresden, where they were holding talks, that they would not support the draft proposal for the U.N. Security Council being circulated by Washington because it did not go far enough in transferring political control to Iraqis and insisted on keeping any multinational force under U.S. command.

“We are ready to examine the proposals, but they seem quite far from what appears to us the primary objective, namely the transfer of political responsibility to an Iraqi government as soon as possible,” Chirac said Thursday at a joint press conference.

Schröder said he welcomed the U.S. proposals, since they represented “movement” towards greater international cooperation. But added: “I agree with my colleague Mr. Chirac when he says that the proposal does not go far enough and is also not dynamic.”

The proposals put forward by Washington represent a reversal in Bush administration policy toward reconstructing a post-war Iraq. The U.S. has until now resisted significant U.N. involvement due to the Security Council’s refusal to approve the war. But near daily attacks on coalition troops stationed there and a mounting bill for reconstruction have forced Washington to reconsider its go-it-alone stance.

While Union politicians found fault with the tone of Schröder’s criticism, they were largely in agreement with the message. The CDU’s Pflüger said he shared the Chancellor’s view that the U.S. draft plan did not go far enough.

“The draft still needs work,” he said.

Iraq deployment still off the table

Germany’s government red-green coalition is sticking to its position that even after a new U.N. resolution, it will not send German troops to Iraq.

“The Bundeswehr is at its limit. We have already exhausted our troop strength in too many other countries,” Gernot Elner, the foreign policy spokesman of the SPD parliamentary group, told German radio.

The Greens also see no reason to discuss sending German soldiers into the country, saying security there is not going to strengthened by increasing troop numbers. Ludger Volmer, the party’s foreign policy spokesman, told the Deutschlandfunk radio network that instead, more official governing functions need to be transferred into Iraqi hands.

“The U.N. shouldn’t become an aid organization for American foreign policy,” he said.

The same mistakes

Germany’s Liberals have come out against that line of thinking, saying it was wrong to be categorically against German participation on the ground in Iraq, independent of the role the U.N. may or may not play.

“With its committed refusal to any troop deployment in Iraq, the government is making the same mistake it made before and during the war,” the security policy spokesman of the FTP, Werner Hoyer, told the Rhein Zeitung newspaper.