WASHINGTON, February 19: The United States lost a major public relations battle on Wednesday even before it fired the first shot in the impending war against Iraq.Assigned by President Clinton to sell the idea of a military offensive against Iraq to a skeptical American public, three of his cabinet members ran into a hostile and vocal minority protesting US foreign policy at a townhall meeting in Columbus, Ohio, the heart of the United States and the birthplace of American humorist James Thurber.
But even Thurber would not have found it funny, much less the firm of Madeleine Albright, Samuel Berger and William Cohen, known as the ABC of President Clinton's foreign policy team.
``One, two, three, four. We don't want your racist war'', a crowd of about 60 people began to chant a few minutes into a widely advertised media event that was being telecast around the world by CNN. The demonstration at the event, held on the campus of the Ohio State University (OSU), immediately recalled the protests overVietnam War nearly 30 years ago. OSU is known more for its middle-of-the-road politics than Leftism.
The ferocity and decibel levels of the motley group visibly disturbed and upset Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, who was making her opening statement. CNN moderator Bernard Shaw tried to downplay the crowd saying there are only 12 of you while a vast majority of the audience wants to listen to the Secretary of State. CNN cameras also blacked out the protesters and at least two, including an Indian student, were evicted from the auditorium.
But worse was yet to come even as belligerent campus radicals kept up the invective for the full 90-minute event. Although majority of the 6,000-strong audience was well-behaved and circumspect, the protests emboldened several skeptics to ask sharp and critical questions about the Clinton administration's goals.
The spectacle was all the more embarrassing for the White House because it had deliberately cut a deal with CNN and given it exclusive rights to telecastthe event worldwide in the fond -- and as it turned out, misplaced -- hope that it may help mobilise international opinion and shame or scare President Saddam Hussein, who is believed to watch CNN regularly.
Instead, what followed was a spectacular defrocking of American foreign policy by a few vigilant radicals. Led by incisive if opinionated questioning by the hecklers, other audience members interrogated the three top administration officials about the lack of international support for bombing, the scale of civilian casualties, the feasibility of reducing Iraq's weapons stocks, and the likelihood of having to attack the country again and again to achieve US aims.
Almost every answer was greeted with boos and jeers. The radical questioners seemed to reserve their vitriol for Albright, the formidable Secretary of State used to staring down some of the most powerful men in the world. One bespectacled youth confronted her with a list of what he called American double standards: Threatening to bomb Iraqwhile allying with regimes like Indonesia, Turkey and Saudi Arabia, also known for their excesses of their own people.
``I am really surprised that people feel that it is necessary to defend the rights of Saddam Hussein, when we ought to be making sure that he does not use weapons of mass destruction,'' Albright snapped.
``You're not answering my question, Madame Albright,'' the questioner rebuked her, saying the US should be consistent in its foreign policy. A stunned Albright asked him to study US foreign policy and said as a former professor she would be delighted to spend 50 minutes with him to change his views.
Another war veteran who said he lost a son and a nephew in the Vietnam war asked in a quavering voice, ``if push comes to shove are we willing to send the troops in and finish the job or are we going to do it half-assed?''
``We do not see the need to carry out a large land campaign in order to try to topple Saddam Hussein,'' Defence Secretary William Cohen replied, once again unable toclearly enunciate US goals in its campaign against Iraq.
Twitted by CNN over exclusive rights, the other TV networks gloated over the discomfiture of both the White House and the network, whose moderators clearly lost control of the situation. As it turned out, the administration took it between the eyes, ABC's Peter Jennings told his much larger domestic audience in his evening world news.
White House officials tried to shrug off the fiasco, kidding that they at least managed to bump Monica Lewinsky off the headlines. The three officials who were verbally mauled also said later that such free expression would not be allowed anywhere else in the world -- and certainly not in Iraq.
On a more serious note, the officials said the radical protests would not really deflect the administration from its stated goals. ``I don't think for a second that he can or should think that 40, 50, 200 people in a room of 6,000 reflect the will of the American people or are in any way going to influence the President of theUnited States,'' National Security Adviser Samuel Berger said later. ``Ultimately there's only one man who decides, and he decides not based on the polls or on 40 screamers but on our national interest.''Brain behind Iraqi weapons remains faceless
MANAMA (Bahrain): Iraq once responded to pressure from the UN by identifying a shy and unassuming British-educated scientist as a driving force behind its production of biological weapons. The scientist, Rihab Taha, was known to UN inspectors monitoring the most feared and least understood of Iraq's weapons programs. They had met numerous times over the years. But whether she leads the program, or is a front for the real brains, Taha represents a problem for world powers concerned about Iraq's ability to produce weapons of mass destruction. It is in part by analyzing Taha's training and career that inspectors have put together some of what they know and suspect about Iraq's scientific brain trust.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
