GERMANY/US/IRAQ: The German Chancellor, Mr Gerhard Schröder, came out fighting yesterday, launching his re-election campaign with a warning to the United States not to start a "military misadventure" in Iraq.
He told 3,000 people in Hanover's Opera Square that Germany would only send troops to war if there was a realistic post-war concept for Iraq.
"Whoever wants into Iraq has to know how to get out. We are in favour of putting pressure on Saddam Hussein, but I can only warn against war games," said Mr Schröder.
"Under my leadership, this country will not make itself available for military misadventures." Earlier the SPD party leadership decided that even with a UN mandate, Germany would go its "own way" on Iraq.
Nevertheless Mr Schröder said the days of "cheque-book diplomacy" were a thing of the past, referring to the financial rather than military support the Kohl government gave to the US in the past.
The chancellor launched the SPD re-election bid more than two weeks early in the hope of turning around the poor showing of the party, currently lagging behind the opposition in the polls.
Mr Schröder urged German voters to reject the rise of right-wing populist politics spreading across Europe.
"Let us send a signal . . . that we want to build an open Europe, and a country where social justice is not a dirty word," he said.
Mr Schröder surprised the crowd in Hanover yesterday by delivering his speech with the fiery rhetorical style not seen since the 1998 election campaign.
He attacked his conservative challenger, Mr Edmund Stoiber, as a "personality from the day before yesterday with the recipes from yesterday".
"Stoiber means more national debt, women at the stove and a two-tier health care system," he told cheering crowds bearing placards reading "Keep at it, Gerd".
Mr Schröder, known by opponents as the "buddy of the bosses", also attacked business leaders for not doing enough to address unemployment.
"Rather than being the fifth column of the opposition, business leaders should work to train our young people," he said. He attacked the "greed culture" of US business where "workers worry about their pensions while managers take home billions".
"That's not the German way," he said.
The chancellor admitted falling short on his 1998 electoral promise to reduce unemployment to 3.5 million but he called on voters to "help us reach the targets we have missed".
Mr Schröder was joined on stage by his wife Doris to inaugurate the SPD's party truck, which will make 77 stops across the country in the next 47 days.
"Even with all the shouting it was a good speech, though I wish he would remember his left-wing roots," said Ms Gertrud Kraüter, from Hanover.
Mr Leopold Erfreter disagreed: "I see that he needs another four years. I am voting for Schröder but not for his government: the left-wing and the Greens keep watering things down."
