Incurable addiction

Poles received advice from a superpower

A scandal broke out in Warsaw yesterday, which seriously darkened relations between strategic partners and military allies - Poland and the United States. On the banks of the Vistula, the hint from the US Embassy Counselor in Poland, Kenneth Hillas, about the desirability of the resignation of the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Education of Poland, Roman Giertych, was regarded as “unprecedented interference.”

This became known from a memo that Leszek Jesen, a member of the government staff with the rank of minister, sent to Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski after a meeting with the second official of the American embassy. The note also reached the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Defense and the special services.

The confidential conversation between the Polish official and the American diplomat concerned military cooperation, including the mission of Polish troops in Afghanistan and the deployment of US missile defense systems on Polish territory. But the main irritant was a fragment of a note in which Hillas criticizes the demand of Giertych, the leader of the League of Polish Families party in the ruling coalition, to hold a debate in the Sejm on the consequences of the war in Iraq for the civilian population. The Americans did not like Mr. Gertych’s statement: “We want to know how many innocent victims died in Iraq in three years.”

Probably, the American diplomat’s impression of his ally’s bold statement on the Iraqi operation would have remained only on paper if Hillas had not added the following: “If the deputy prime minister of a government, for example in Germany, France or Denmark, had uttered such words, he would have been fired.” . This statement caused a storm. Defense Minister Radoslaw Sikorski decisively wrote in the margin of a copy of the memo that this was “interference in the internal affairs of Poland,” and called Hillas’ statement “traditionally unconscionable.” Giertych himself wrote in a letter to Foreign Minister Anna Fotyga that “the practice of the US Deputy Ambassador is reminiscent of the worst times of the dependence of Polish politics on foreign powers,” and asked for a response.

Mrs. Fotyga yesterday demanded an explanation from the US Ambassador. An internal investigation has begun concerning several storylines in the note that caused a lot of noise. It followed that Hillas insisted that Poland quickly make a decision on the deployment of American military bases and parts of the “anti-missile shield” on its territory, because delay could lead to a reduction in funding for the project. At the same time, the American said that Poland demands too much for consent.

In the United States, they are trying to put the brakes on the scandal, claiming that the reports are not true. Anonymous statements appear explaining the publication of the memo by intrigues in the Polish government. The latter may have a basis: the internal political struggle in Poland is reaching a boiling point - after all, there are local elections on November 12.

Valery MASTEROV, staff correspondent for Moscow News in Warsaw, for Vremya Novostei