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WASHINGTON.
When Colin Powell goes to the United Nations today to make his
case for war with Saddam, the U.N. plans to throw a blue cover
over Picasso's antiwar masterpiece, "Guernica."
Too
much of a mixed message, diplomats say. As final preparations
for the secretary's presentation were being made last night, a
U.N. spokesman explained, "Tomorrow it will be covered and
we will put the Security Council flags in front of it."
Mr.
Powell can't very well seduce the world into bombing Iraq surrounded
on camera by shrieking and mutilated women, men, children, bulls
and horses.
Reporters
and cameras will stake out the secretary of state at the entrance
of the U.N. Security Council, where the tapestry reproduction
of "Guernica," contributed by Nelson Rockefeller, hangs.
The
U.N. began covering the tapestry last week after getting nervous
that Hans Blix's head would end up on TV next to a screaming horse
head.
(Maybe
the U.N. was inspired by John Ashcroft's throwing a blue cover
over the "Spirit of Justice" statue last year, after
her naked marble breast hovered over his head during a televised
terrorism briefing.)
Nelson
Rockefeller himself started the tradition of covering up art donated
by Nelson Rockefeller when he sandblasted Diego Rivera's mural
in the RCA Building in 1933 because it included a portrait of
Lenin. (Rivera later took his revenge, reproducing the mural for
display in Mexico City, but adding to it a portrait of John D.
Rockefeller Jr. drinking a martini with a group of "painted
ladies.")
There
has been too much sandblasting in Washington lately.
After
leading the charge for months that there were ties between Iraq
and Al Qaeda, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld chastised the
media yesterday for expecting dramatic, explicit evidence from
Mr. Powell. "The fixation on a smoking gun is fascinating
to me," he said impatiently, adding: "You all . . .
have been watching `L.A. Law' or something too much."
The
administration's argument for war has shifted in a dizzying Cubist
cascade over the last months. Last summer, Bush officials warned
that Saddam was close to building nuclear bombs. Now, with intelligence
on aluminum tubes, once deemed proof of an Iraqi nuclear program,
in dispute, the administration's emphasis has tacked back to germ
and chemical weapons. With no proof that Saddam has given weapons
to terrorists, another once-crucial part of the case for going
to war, Mr. Rumsfeld and others now frame their casus belli prospectively:
that we must get rid of Saddam because he will soon become the
gulf's leading weapons supplier to terrorists.
Secretary
Powell was huddling on the evidence in New York yesterday with
the C.I.A. director, George Tenet. Mr. Tenet was there to make
sure nothing too sensitive was revealed at the U.N., but mainly
to lend credibility to Mr. Powell's brief, since there have been
many reports that the intelligence agency has been skeptical about
some of the Pentagon and White House claims on Iraq. It was Mr.
Tenet who warned Congress in a letter last fall that there was
only one circumstance in which the U.S. need worry about Iraq
sharing weapons with terrorists: if Washington attacked Saddam.
When
Mr. Bush wanted to sway opinion on Iraq before his State of the
Union speech last week, he invited columnists to the White House.
But he invited only conservative columnists, who went from gushing
about the president to gushing more about the president.
The
columnists did not use Mr. Bush's name, writing about him as "a
senior administration official," even though the White House
had announced the meeting in advance.
They
quoted "the official" about the president's determination
on war. That's just silly.
Calling
in only like-minded journalists is like campaigning for a war
only in the red states that Mr. Bush won in 2000, and not the
blue states won by Al Gore.
When
France and Germany acted skeptical, Mr. Rumsfeld simply booted
them out of modern Europe, creating a pro-Bush red part of the
European map (led by Poland, Italy and Britain) and the left-behind
blue of "old Europe."
When
the evidence is not black and white, the president must persuade
everyone. There is no red and blue. There is just red, white and
blue.
Source: New
York Times
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