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Experts warn U.S. will go it alone in war on terror

SPECIAL TO WORLD TRIBUNE.COM
Thursday, April 25, 2002

Government consultants and think tanks are warning the Bush administration to prepare for a war against terrorism without the backing of European allies and Russia.

The reason: European Union states have large Muslim minorities and cannot support a campaign that might be seen as in opposition to the Arab or Islamic world.

And Russia, with a differing perspective on Islamic insurgency, fears that the next stage of any U.S.-led war against terrorism will destabilize the Middle East, according to a report by the Brookings Institute.

The warnings are being taken seriously by the White House and members of the U.S. Congess, Middle East Newsline reported.

Government consultants said President George Bush has been disappointed by the lukewarm to dismissive responses by such countries as France and Germany and even by some British leaders to the war against terrorism.

"We've been complaining as long as I can remember about the inadequacies of our allies, but if they weren't willing to step up to the Soviet threat, they're sure not going to step up to this one," Loren Thompson, chief operating officer of the Lexington Institute, said in testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee earlier this month. "I'm told that the left in France today can't even win an election without the Moslem vote. If that's the case, we're going to have to do this pretty much all for ourselves."

Thompson's assertion was issued before France's presidential elections on Sunday in which the nation's Muslim minority was a signficant factor in the outcome. Britain and Germany also contain large Muslim communities.

Senate Armed Services Committee chairman John Warner said he agreed with Thompson, regarded as a leading strategist. Warner said the assessment requires an integrated plan for homeland defense and raised the prospect that suicide bombings in Israel could be duplicated in other areas of the world.

"We see on the battlefronts today the utilization of suicidal attacks as bringing about a transformation in warfare over there that I don't think any of us fully envisioned until this tragic chapter has unfolded here in the last year or so," Warner said.

A report by Washington-based Brookings Institute said Moscow appears ready for a parting of ways with Washington regarding the terrorist threat. The report, authored by analyst Fiona Hill, said Russia views Iran as a stabilizing factor in the Middle East rather than a member of the "axis of evil," a term coined by President George Bush.

Unlike Bush, Russian President Vladimir Putin does not expect Russia to come under a new wave of terrorism. The result is that Moscow has not significantly increased homeland security.

"Security is still lax at airports Ñ even woefully so for international flights to the United States Ñ and in public buildings, although some have attempted to install new screening devices in government institutions," the report, entitled, "Extremists and Bandits: How Russia Views the War against Terrorism," said. "An increased police presence on city streets is not evident. Despite the threshold of terror crossed on September 11 ... Russians do not perceive an increased risk that weapons of mass destruction will be used in an attack against them."

The report said Russia sees its main role as neutralizing the large Muslim minority in the country. The effort has included coopting traditional Muslim leaders, preventing Saudi financing of Chechen insurgents and befriending such Muslim neighbors as Iran.

The differences in approach between the United States and Russia threaten to result in a clash over the future of Iraq. The report said Moscow does not see the missile and weapons of mass destruction programs in Iraq, Iran or North Korea as threats.

Ms. Hill urges Bush and Putin to reach an agreement on the terrorist threat.

"For Putin, his association with Bush's war on terrorism has become something unpredictable that could destabilize the entire region to Russia's south in the Middle East."

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