Key either incompetent or misleading over war coalition meeting
Analysis released by the Green Party shows multiple international news organisations were reporting on United States
President Barack Obama’s attendance at an ISIS war coalition meeting at Andrews Air Force Base up to twelve hours before
the meeting started.
Prime Minister John Key claims the New Zealand Government was not aware of Obama’s attendance at the meeting in advance,
which shows he is either incompetent or misleading New Zealanders about the meeting, said the Greens.
“It defies belief that a bunch of news organisations had better information on the war coalition meeting than John Key
did,” said Green Party Co-leader Dr Russel Norman.
“The Guardian and others were publically reporting on Obama’s attendance half a day before the meeting started, yet John
Key and the Defence Forces continue to claim that they were in the dark about it.
“The world’s media knew Obama was attending the meeting but our Government didn’t. They are either incompetent or they
are being misleading.
“A basic Google alert could have tipped them off that Obama was going to be there.
“The increasing suspicion is that John Key doesn’t want New Zealanders to think we are a formal part of the war
coalition, even though the evidence points to the fact that we already are.
“When Alistair Baskey, spokesman for the White House National Security Council, told international media organisations
in advance that the meeting was “part of ongoing efforts to build the coalition and integrate the capabilities of each country into the broader
strategy," was he excluding New Zealand from that statement?
“All the evidence points to the Government already having made a decision about dragging New Zealand into a war with
ISIS, but pretending domestically that such a decision hasn’t been made.
“John Key has been caught out about this war meeting. He is either incompetent or misleading to the New Zealand public.
“First he said it was just a regular meeting. Then he said it was an irregular meeting. Now he needs to admit what
everyone else knows; it was a war coalition meeting, with active New Zealand involvement.”
List of news organisations reporting on war coalition meeting:
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/oct/14/obama-meets-foreign-military-chiefs-isis-strategy (reported 11 hours, 55 minutes before meeting started)
http://in.reuters.com/article/2014/10/14/mideast-crisis-military-obama-idINKCN0I30AY20141014 (reported 12 hours, 50 minutes before the meeting started)
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