Kerry Lied?

Speaking to America during the second debate, John Kerry claimed to have met and talked with all the members of the U.N. Security Council the week before voting to authorize the use of force in 2002:

This president hasn't listened.

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.

The Washington Times has confirmed that according to the actual members of the Security Council, this simply isn't true:

But 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....

Jean-David Levitte, then France's chief U.N. representative and now his country's ambassador to the United States, said through a spokeswoman that Mr. Kerry did not have a single group meeting as the senator has described, but rather several one-on-one or small-group encounters.

He added that Mr. Kerry did not meet with every member of the Security Council, only "some" of them. Mr. Levitte could only name himself and Ambassador Jeremy Greenstock of Britain as the Security Council members with whom Mr. Kerry had met.

One diplomat who met with Mr. Kerry in 2002 said on the condition of anonymity that the candidate talked to "a few" ambassadors on the Security Council.

This is obviously in line with Kerry's view of the world: a coalition of 32 nations isn't a valid international effort because it doesn't include France and Germany. By extrapolation, meeting with just four of the other 14 members of the Security Council (China, France, Germany and the U.K.) is sufficient to meet the test of international will because the other guys are tiny and irrelevant -- just like the majority of those in the coalition.

Update: Once again, I was scooped by Power Line who posted this first (by two hours, damnit!).

Blog post #3949 in category Kerry '04
posted 25 October 04

 

« Judging Character

| Home |

Blogging Award »