Europeans Look to Soften 'War' Talk
By ELAINE GANLEY
.c The Associated Press
PARIS (AP) - European leaders sought to reassure their citizens Friday that they will not lash out blindly at other countries despite their pledge to back the United States in its fight against terrorists.
``The mad creatures who committed these terrible crimes this week may have hoped to provoke us into mindless revenge in order to create even more devastation,'' Lord Robertson, the NATO secretary-general, said in Macedonia. ``They are wrong.''
The 15-member European Union said Friday it would work on measures such as unified arrest warrants and extradition orders, and bolstering countries' common foreign and security policies to help fight terrorism.
However, French Prime Minister Lionel Jospin, who led his Cabinet in a Europe-wide three-minute moment of silence, said, ``We are not at war against Islam or the Arab-Muslim world.''
Belgian Foreign Minister Louis Michel, speaking on RTL radio in France, said that the EU is ``on watch'' and ``mobilized,'' but he added, ``We are not at war.''
The remarks, coupled with similar statements elsewhere, suggested growing concern that retaliation for the attacks not plunge the West into a full-blown crisis.
President Bush has repeatedly used the word ``war'' in describing the situation created by the attacks. ``We have just seen the first war of the 21st century,'' he said Thursday.
European leaders were clearly keen on avoiding such bellicose language.
The Tuesday attacks ``call for very strong words, but I don't think we should be extreme,'' the Belgian foreign minister cautioned.
``I think the Americans will reply in an intelligent manner, in a very targeted manner, and won't be irrational,'' Michel said. ``They will feel this responsibility to have an appropriate reaction, all the more so because Europe has shown this great solidarity.''
His words echoed those Thursday by German Defense Minister Rudolf Scharping, who urged a ``measured'' response to the U.S. terrorist attacks and warned against hysteria.
Some officials of Germany's Green Party, a member of the governing coalition, and some members of German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's Social Democratic Party have also expressed concern.
Michel said there was ``no confusion'' about European participation in a riposte because the North Atlantic Treaty ``clearly indicates that if a state is attacked, the others ... must help it.''
Now, he said, each country ``must measure its capacity to contribute.''
``We are confronted with a terrorist threat that is real ... and because of that we must be totally mobilized,'' he said.
Jospin added in his comments to his Cabinet that French ``human, political and functional solidarity (with the United States) does not deprive us of our free appreciation of our sovereignty.''