U.S. Injures Poland's National Pride
// A streak of scandals between the counties
The first of 48 F-16 fighter jets purchased by Poland from the United States arrived yesterday. There was a solemn ceremony in Warsaw to mark the occasion with President Lech Kaczynski taking part. However, two scandals marred the beginning of this new level of U.S.-Polish relations, one associated with the jets and the other with the deputy chief of mission of the U.S. embassy in Warsaw Kenneth Hillas.
The first two jets were to land at Krzesiny Polish Air Force Base on Tuesday, with two more following the next day. That was when the ceremony to present the F-16 jets was to take place. However, the first pair of jets was forced to return to the U.S. The navigational system of one of them malfunctioned, as did the fuel system of the other. Problems with one of the second pair of fighters arose in flight too and it had to land at the U.S. Air Force base in Iceland.
On Wednesday, the Polish government sent an official enquiry to American authorities about the causes of the malfunctions of the completely new aircraft it had bought. Poland bought a total of 48 of the planes, which will be delivered to its air forces by 2012. Washington provided an explanation. Yesterday the planes landed safely in Poland.
A bigger scandal arose in U.S.-Polish relations on Tuesday, when Polish media carried information about a closed meeting between deputy chief of mission of the U.S. embassy in Warsaw Kenneth Hillas and foreign policy advisor to the Polish prime minister Leszek Jesien on October 25. The head of the Polish government received a confidential memo on the results of that meeting, which was leaked to Polish media.
The second-ranked diplomat at the American embassy in Warsaw expressed his dissatisfaction with Deputy Prime Minister Roman Giertych's position on the war in Iraq. An opponent of the war, Giertych demanded in October that parliamentary debates be held on the deaths of civilians in Iraq. “We want to know how many innocent victims have died in Iraq in the last three years,” Giertych said.
Those words “caused concern in Washington,” Hillas told the Polish prime minister's consultant. According to Polish media, Hillas told Jesien that “if a deputy prime minister in Germany, France or Denmark said such things, he would be fired.” The Polish took that as a hint that the U.S. was demanding that Giertych be dismissed, and passion flared.
Giertych, the head of the Catholic organization League of Polish Families, sent a letter to the Polish Foreign Minister demanding “a strong reaction to the unacceptable interference in Poland's domestic affairs.” Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski made similar statements about no outside having the right to interfere in the affairs of the government of a sovereign state. Then American Ambassador to Poland Victor Ashe was called in to the Polish Foreign Ministry to meet with Foreign Minister Anna Fotyga, who demanded that the ambassador give an explanation of his deputy's statements.
The Americans did everything possible to smooth over the scandal. An American embassy representative in Warsaw confirmed that the meeting between Hillas and Jesien took place, but denied that the American diplomat ordered the dismissal of the deputy prime minister. An official spokesman of the U.S. State Department admitted that the U.S. “was slightly surprised by the Polish deputy prime minister's comment,” but claimed that Washington did not intend to control or even comment on the makeup of the Polish government. With that, the U.S. made it clear that it considered the scandal behind it.
It is too soon to dismiss the scandal, however. The text of the memorandum that appeared in the Polish press also mentioned U.S. plans to locate elements of its ballistic missile defense system in Poland. There, Hillas comments that Poland is asking for too much in return for territory for the military object. Near that comment, Polish Defense Minister Radoslaw Sikorski wrote “Merciless!” He clearly was referring to the U.S.'s aggressive statement of conditions.
Sikorski too had to make an explanation. He stated yesterday that the Polish government takes a very serious attitude to the placement of American missiles on Polish territory, but does so out of Polish national interests. It remains to be seen how he Polish public will react to his explanation. One thing is obvious from the leaked memo. Washington and Warsaw are haggling over the placement of American missiles in Poland.
Vladimir Vodo, Warsaw; Gennady Sysoev
All the Article in Russian as of Nov. 10, 2006
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