I Tried To Stop the War

Who is this diplomat who insists he tried to halt the Bush obsession with invading Iraq? Why, Italien PM Silvio Berlusconi, of course!

Silvio Berlusconi, one of George Bush's closest allies, says he repeatedly tried to talk the US president out of invading Iraq, in comments to be broadcast today.

In the television interview, which goes out on the day the Italian prime minister flies to Washington to meet Mr Bush, Mr Berlusconi says he even enlisted the help of the Libyan leader, Colonel Muammar Gadafy, in behind-the-scenes efforts to stop America going to war.

"I have never been convinced war was the best way to succeed in making a country democratic and extract it from an albeit bloody dictatorship," he says. "I tried on several occasions to convince the American president not to wage war."

His version of events, recounted in an interview with the La7 private TV station, with excerpts reported by the Apcom and Ansa news agencies at the weekend, was backed by his deputy, Gianfranco Fini, leader of the former neo-fascist party, who said: "We tried right up to the end to persuade Bush and Blair not to launch a military attack."

Quite the turn of events for Mr. Burlesconi, up to this point one of the staunchest allies of The Administration's G.W.o.T. The Italians have suffered in the war, and they have had a major crisis of their own in Iraq. Burls's been burned by his ineffectiveness to confince fellow rightwinger Bush not to be so hawkish...