Germany tried to block us and thinks we would need German input to rebuild Iraq...Not!

In a report to the Foreign Ministry on Feb. 21, Germany's U.N. Ambassador Gunter Pleuger said that Washington, forced to move against Saddam Hussein alone, would later "remorsefully return to the Council" to seek help on enormous task of rebuilding Iraq, the Frankfurt Allgemeine newspaper said Sunday.

The newspaper said Pleuger's report backed unidentified countries' efforts to block the resolution. Pleuger said "it is better if the Security Council does not let itself be used by the USA," the newspaper reported.

I think the UN will be begging us, Herr Pleuger, should we choose to leave the UN, to return because they can't survive without US money.

Recent reports have said Schroeder's government is quietly considering sending German soldiers to participate in a possible U.N.-led peacekeeping mission in Iraq that would follow any military action against Baghdad.

Government officials have declined to comment on an early release of a report in the Monday edition the Spiegel weekly indicating German would send up to 1,000 troops to support a postwar mission.

Schroeder indicated late Friday that Germany would be willing to participate in a peacekeeping operation sanctioned by the United Nations.

"Of course Germany has always been prepared to fulfill its international obligations, under the United Nations," Schroeder told ARD television late Friday.

I think not. The Germans are only interested in saving face should some potentially embarrasing documents turn up indicating German involvement in trade that was illegal under the sanctions.