Arms Issue Seen as Hurting U.S. Credibility Abroad

[Manix]

By Glenn Kessler
Washington Post


<snip>


The Bush administration's inability to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq -- after public statements declaring an imminent threat posed by Iraqi President Saddam Hussein -- has begun to harm the credibility abroad of the United States and of American intelligence, according to foreign policy experts in both parties.


<snip>


James Steinberg, a deputy national security adviser in the Clinton administration who believed there were legitimate concerns about Iraq's weapons programs, said the failure of the prewar claims to match the postwar reality "add to the general sense of criticism about the U.S., that we will do anything, say anything" to prevail.

Indeed, whenever Powell grants interviews to foreign news organizations, he is often hit with a question about the search for weapons of mass destruction. Last Friday, a British TV reporter asked whether in retirement he would "admit that you had concerns about invading Iraq," and a Dutch reporter asked whether he ever had doubts about the Iraq policy.



Full Text

[Voltaire99]

1. No! Can't be!

Has "begun to harm credibility"? Destroy it, actually. As anyone reading the foreign press knows, perceptions are far worse (and have been for some time) than the Post lets on.

Outside of the Bush propaganda blitz so warmly welcomed by most Americans and sustained by the worst kind of right wing bullyboys, the world is sick of US adventurism and the lies that feed it. Sick to death.

It is no small accomplishment to make a planet hate you.