http://mediekritik.lege.net/

[11-09-01.blogspot.com]

http://www.thetruthseeker.co.uk/article.asp?ID=4095
According to a report in the Leipziger Volkszeitung, Fischer, together with Steinmeier and the interior minister at the time, Otto Schily (SPD), personally promised to provide extensive co-operation to the US government prior to the war itself. Fischer was not only informed of the presence of two German agents in Baghdad who passed on information to the US secret services, according to Der Spiegel, but he personally met and congratulated the two agents for their work in the summer of 2003.

When the Bundestag faction of the Greens initially decided in favor of a committee of inquiry, Fischer was the only one to oppose it. He obviously has something to hide. In the meantime, other Green Party leaders have also dissociated themselves from their own decision. The two chairmen of the party, Renate Künast and Fritz Kuhn, have said that an enquiry would not be necessary if the government clarifies some unresolved issues.

The speaker for the Greens on legal affairs, Jerzy Monday, justified this retreat with remarkable openness and stated his party would not agree to an investigation “which contained accusations in relation to SPD-Green policy.” In other words, the Greens will only support an investigation when it uncovers nothing.

The deputy leader of the Left Party parliamentary fraction, Petra Pau, expressed her sympathy with the Greens, saying, “We do not want confirmation of any prefabricated judgments; it is a matter of clearing up the facts.”

There is also some reservation in the FDP regarding such a committee of inquiry. While party chief Guido Westerwelle is in favor of it for short-term political considerations, the party’s foreign expert and deputy head of the parliamentary group, Werner Hoyer, has been critical. Up until 1998, Hoyer was minister of state in the Foreign Office. According to newspaper reports, FDP party head Wolfgang Gerhardt is also opposed to an inquiry.

In a parliamentary debate on the topic last Friday, Foreign Minister Steinmeier warned, “You can set the committee of inquiry on the tracks, but the station it arrives at might be a different one than you think.”

It is already foreseeable that either the committee of inquiry will not happen or, as is often the case with such official investigations, important issues will be buried and the whole affair hushed up. Nevertheless, the numerous details that have come to light during the past few weeks are sufficient to completely undermine the myth that the SPD-Green government effectively opposed the Iraq war.