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WORLD / America
Presidential candidate says NATO should admit Israel, Japan
(Reuters)
Updated: 2007-09-20 11:02
LONDON - Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani urged NATO to
admit Australia, India, Israel, Japan and Singapore on Wednesday as part
of proposals to combat Islamic extremism.
Speaking to a US-British conservative group in London, Giuliani said
Britain and the United States must stand side-by-side in tackling Islamic
terrorism.
"This is no time for defeatism and appeasement," he said.
He also ruled out a "pre-determined timetable" for a US pullout from Iraq
and said British Prime Minister Gordon Brown was right to reject such a
timetable for British forces.
Victory there should depend on reaching a point at which Iraq could be
maintained as a US ally "in the terrorist war against us", said Giuliani,
Republican frontrunner in the race to succeed George W. Bush in the
November 2008 election.
Iraq was part of a much larger war, Giuliani said, urging Washington and
London not to be distracted from Afghanistan, where he called for a
redoubling of efforts.
Among his proposals for the United States and Britain to take the lead in
"winning this war", Giuliani urged the two countries to push for an
expansion of NATO into a global body.
"We should open the organisation's membership to any willing state that
meets basic standards of good governance, military readiness (and) global
responsibility, regardless of location," he said.
"I think we should consider countries such as Australia, Singapore,
India, Israel, Japan ... and there are probably a whole group of others
that we could put on that list," he said.
The defence alliance has expanded in recent years but its current
membership is 26 countries in North America and Europe.
Call?for?expanded US military
Facing increasing war-weariness in the United States, Bush last week
ordered gradual troop reductions in Iraq but defied calls for a dramatic
change of course.
Giuliani, giving the first "Margaret Thatcher Atlantic Bridge" lecture to
an audience that included the former British prime minister, called for
an expansion of the US military, saying it had cut back too much after
the Cold War.
"We need to add at least 10 new combat brigades, that's probably just the
beginning," Giuliani said, adding the United States faced not only
Islamic terrorism, but also had to consider the possibility of a "large
war with a nation state".
Speaking earlier, Giuliani said the United States should spell out
clearly to Iran that it would not allow Tehran to acquire nuclear
weapons. Giuliani said he had discussed Iran with Brown, his predecessor
Tony Blair and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert in the past few days.
The West suspects Iran is developing atomic weapons but Tehran says its
nuclear programme is aimed solely at generating electric power.
"The policy of the United States of America should be very, very clear:
we will use any option we believe is in our best interest to stop them
from being a nuclear power," Giuliani said.
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