Lies, Bribes

[Overpaid Slacker]

UNfamiliar
During the second presidential debate, John Kerry had this to say in explanation for his vote in favor of the war with Iraq:

"I went to meet with the members of the Security Council in the week before we voted. I went to New York. I talked to all of them to find out how serious they were about really holding Saddam Hussein accountable.

I came away convinced that, if we worked at it, if we were ready to work and letting Hans Blix do his job and thoroughly go through the inspections, that if push came to shove, they'd be there with us."

We wondered at the time if he was telling the truth about his diplomatic efforts, and now the Washington Times has evidence that he wasn't:

Of the five ambassadors on the Security Council in 2002 who were reached directly for comment, four said they had never met Mr. Kerry. The four also said that no one who worked for their countries' U.N. missions had met with Mr. Kerry either.

The former ambassadors who said on the record they had never met Mr. Kerry included the representatives of Mexico, Colombia and Bulgaria. The ambassador of a fourth country gave a similar account on the condition that his country not be identified.

The Times says Kerry did meet with representatives from France, Singapore, Cameroon and possibly Britain. But in addition to the debate, he claimed during a 2003 speech at the Council on Foreign Relations that "I sat with the French and British, Germans, with the entire Security Council, and we spent a couple of hours talking about what they saw as the path to a united front in order to be able to deal with Saddam Hussein" (emphasis ours).

At the very least, this would seem to be one of those exaggerations. Oh well, at least he didn't say it was seared--seared--into his memory.

Coalition of the Bribed, eh?
John Kerry loves to disparage the "coalition of the bribed and the coerced" that liberated Iraq. "The phoniest thing I ever heard," he called it in September. But blogger Arthur Chrenkoff (known to readers of this Web site for his roundups of good news from Iraq and Afghanistan) notes that Kerry is himself offering what might be termed bribes to an important coalition member. In an interview with a Polish newspaper and a Polish-language American one, which Chrenkoff translated, Kerry had this to say:

"America must give its allies a stake in stabilizing Iraq. The best way to achieve that is through binding their interests with the peaceful future of that country. On the economic front this will mean granting true and tried friends--like Poland--a share in the multibillion-dollar reconstruction contracts, in a share proportional to Poland's contribution to the coalition. I assure you that just as Poland was treated as an equal with other members of the coalition, so she will be an equal partner in the task of rebuilding Iraq."

Kerry also promised to ease visa requirements for Poles who want to come to America. And he praised Poland's contribution to the Iraq effort: "Poland is playing a significant role in the coalition and I fully appreciate the contribution of Polish units in Iraq. . . . Poland showed courage when she joined American and allied forces in Iraq. My countrymen are grateful for that and I myself will also never forget that."

Well, Kerry makes a hell of a lot more sense when he speaks Polish than when he tries to speak English. But this does make clear that the coalition is much less phony than Kerry's attacks on it.

From Taranto's OpinionJournal. I was going to post Chrenkoff's page earlier today but it got lost in the sauce. Check it out here.

JP

EDITed to add quotes around material indented and/or italicized to indicate quotation in the original.