War with Iraq and the Americas

The Bush administration expressed great disappointment at the position of Canada, Mexico and Chile on the war with Iraq. The two Latin American countries are on the Security Council, so they prevented the US from getting a majority of the Security Council. Fox issued a long diplomatic statement to the Mexican people, but clearly his attempts to use the crisis to pry concessions from the US on illegal immigrants in the US had failed. There were contradictory reports as to whether the US had made contingency plans to close the border. The negative attitude of Chile was typical of South America, where only desperate Colombia supported the US. Four Central American countries and Panama expressed their support of the US, just words, but sufficient to allow the US to claim that it had the support of 30 countries.

Ronald Hilton - 3/19/03