Tuesday, March 18, 2003

From President Bush's speech last night:

...some permanent members of the Security Council have publicly announced they will veto any resolution that compels the disarmament of Iraq. These governments share our assessment of the danger, but not our resolve to meet it. Many nations, however, do have the resolve and fortitude to act against this threat to peace....

From AP today:

"We now have a coalition of the willing that includes some 30 nations who publicly said they could be included in such a listing," Powell said, "and there are 15 other nations, for one reason or another, who do not wish to be publicly named but will be supporting the coalition." ...

The State Department released the list of 30 countries, one of which, Japan, was identified as only a post-conflict member of the coalition.

Spokesman Richard Boucher said some of them "may put troops on the ground," while others would take on other roles, such as assisting in a defense against the use of chemical or biological weapons or permitting allied combat planes to fly over their territory....

No Arab country was listed by the State Department. But Boucher declined to say none supported the United States against Iraq....

Turkey was included on the list, and Powell said even as the Turkish parliament debates a U.S. proposal to use Turkish territory for an invasion of northern Iraq he was confident of Turkish cooperation in one form or another....


I guess it all depends on what the definition of "resolve and fortitude" is.

(Oh, here's the dream team: "part of the coalition" -- Afghanistan, Albania, Australia, Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Colombia, the Czech Republic, Denmark, El Salvador, Eritrea, Estonia, Ethiopia, Georgia, Hungary, Italy and Japan, which isisted as "post-conflict"; "others" -- South Korea, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, the Netherlands, Nicaragua, the Philippines, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Spain, Turkey, the United Kingdom and Uzbekistan.)

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