The Coalition of the Unwilling

[mogster]

Former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and former Norwegian Defense minister Kristin Krohn Devold.
They are close friends.

In the middle of May 2003, two months after the Iraqi invasion, Norway joined the Coalition of the Willing. Or, as you shall see, that fact was denied by Norwegian politicians from May 16th 2003 up and until Bush confirmed Norway's participation in his SOTU speech in January 2004.

Two Norwegian politicians are central in the process of bringing Norway into the coalition; Defense minister Kristin Krohn Devold from the Conservative party and Carl Ivar Hagen, leader of the Progress party.

The pressure from the Bush/Blair administrations was enormous, lasting from mid-2002 and up to Norway's resignation in May 2003.

Here is a timeline showing how the whole thing went down. I've used articles from the Norwegian papers Aftenposten and Dagbladet for verification purposes. Where the org. article is in English, it is marked with an (EN), the rest is in Norwegian language, the title and the ingres translated by me.

Take some time to check out just how willing the European coalition partners were. And how they were tricked into participating in the coalition, so that Bush could present a row of supporting nations in his SOTU speech in January 2004.

More:
http://www.iterapi.com/index.php?cat=60&art=330

[Javaman]

1. Yeah, rumspuke discusses "politics" with her...

he's a dirty old slime ball wanting to get into an attract womans pants.

I think the last think on rumspukes brain is her mind.

[mogster]

2. This goes a bit deeper than that

Although I wouldn't put it past him ;-)

But is there a spy scandal hidden here? Was there a mole in the Norwegian government? Here's from former Prime minister Bondevik's book, published in 2006:

October 31, 2006
Gave Bush Norwegian secrets
"After a secret meeting where Bondevik and four ministers discussed the Iraqi war, an unknown person informed the USA about the contents of what Bondevik had said.
(...)
In a paragraph on page 638 and 639 in his bio 'A life in excitement', Kjell Magne Bondevik discloses a scandal not formerly publicly known:

The information suggests that suspicion is directed towards Jan Petersen (Foreign minister), Kristin Krohn Devold (Defense minister), Per-Kristian Foss (Finance minister) and Odd Einar Dørum (Minister of Justice) and their closest coworkers while holding the government position.
(...)
The former PM writes this in his book:
"In mid-November (2004) I was briefed by govt. councellor Nina Frisak and deputy chief Bente Angell-Hansen at the Prime ministers office that ambassador Knut Vollebæk had called from Washington.

He said that the US foreign dept. in Washington had contacted him and referred from a meeting of the (Norwegian) government security council November 8 regarding Norwegian contributions to NATO instructors in Iraq. The department said they knew which opinions I had expressed.

This was unheard of! The sessions of the security council is secret.

Either somebody had leaked from the meeting or we were being wiretapped, which I didn't believe. I asked Frisak to work out a list of the participants of that meeting, and other that was informed of the sessions and demanded that the necessity for secrecy of these meetings was to be stressed."
(...)
When the political editor of Aftenposten, Harald Stanghelle, asked questions about the remarkable disclosure during the book publishing today, Bondevik said that the investigation in 2004 never produced any result.

- We investigated the matter with utmost seriousness, but found no source. We asked for a list over all persons with access to information from the security council, says Bondevik, who admits it was embarrassing to have to lecture members of his government in the necessity for secrecy.

- This is a very unfortunate episode, and I am happy to say that I didn't discover any more, he says.

- But the norm in such situations must be that such leaks never is discovered. Could this be the tip of the iceberg?, Stanghelle wanted to know.

- I have no reason to say so.

- Could this be espionage on behalf of the USA?

- I have no reason to say so."

The link to the article is in Norwegian, but I've translated more in the article at NIFS:
http://www.iterapi.com/index.php?cat=60&art=330