Angry US Snubs German Leader Over
"Poisoned Ties"

September 24 2002

Deeply angered by perceived anti-US campaign tactics used by German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, the United States today snubbed his election win saying he would have a lot of work to heal poisoned ties.

Schroeder's strong opposition to military action against Iraq and an alleged comment by the former justice minister comparing President George W Bush to Adolf Hitler caused deep offence at the White House.

White House spokesman Ari Fleischer ignored reporters' questions on whether Bush had contacted Schroeder after the chancellor's win.

Although Bush routinely offers congratulations by telephone, Fleischer curtly said the US State Department was the appropriate agency from which to seek reaction.

But at the State Department officials, said spokesman Richard Boucher was preparing only to "note" yesterday's results without any laudatory comment, the diplomatic equivalent of a slap in the face.

A senior official travelling with Bush on a trip to New Jersey said it would take a considerable effort by Schroeder's government "to improve relations, which have been damaged between the governments."

"Chairman Schroeder and his government have a lot of work to repair the damage that he did by his excesses during the campaign," the official told reporters.

A State Department official said Boucher would not go beyond "noting" the election results in which Schroeder's Social Democrat Party and the Green Party which squeaked to victory.

"We will say that the rhetoric of the campaign was harsh but we have a common agenda and we intend to continue to work on that agenda," the official said.

"It will be something anodyne but which makes our displeasure known and keeps the coolness in place," the official said on condition of anonymity.

The White House first made blistering criticism of the Schroeder campaign last week. At the weekend National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice told a German newspapers the chancellor's tactics had "poisoned" US-German relations, a comment repeated today by Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

"The way it was conducted was notably unhelpful and as the White House has indicated had the effect of poisoning a relationship," Rumsfeld told reporters in Warsaw, where he is attending a NATO meeting.

Though Schroeder has been vocal in his opposition to a possible US military strike on Iraq and critical of Bush, Washington had remained silent on the campaign until German justice minister Herta Daeubler-Gmelin was reported to have compared Bush's president's methods on Iraq to those of Adolf Hitler.

Both Bush and Rice were enraged by the reported comments and Schroeder apologised on Friday after Secretary of State Colin Powell telephoned his German counterpart Joschka Fischer to express US "outrage."

http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2002/09/24/1032734151420.html