PARIS, 23 March 2003 — Newspapers across Europe reacted in shock and awe yesterday to the massive US and British bombing that left the Iraqi capital in flames, which Washington and London said was a “humane” blitz and the Iraqi authorities said had wounded more than 200 civilians.

“Bombs and missiles, inferno on Baghdad,” headlined Italy’s Corriere della Sera, echoing the reaction of papers in France, Germany, Spain and eastern Europe.

“(The bombardment) targeting one man, Saddam, is instead hammering an entire city of five million inhabitants,” added the country’s Il Messaggero, while La Repubblica said: “On TV screens...war has appeared in its naked, terrible truth.”

“Hell in Baghdad. How many people died here?” Switzerland’s tabloid Blick headlined.

The British press speculated on the fate of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein following US reports that he may have been killed or wounded.

“If Mr. Hussein was indeed killed, the war may nearly have ended on the first night it began,” the Financial Times said.

Newspapers in Greece and Spain — which oppose the war despite the government’s staunch support for Washington — worried that accurate information about the bombing raids would be among the first casualties of the conflict.

“Propaganda is imperceptibly displacing information,” warned right-wing El Mundo.

“(Censorship) is obvious when an illegal attack is called a ‘preventative war’, murders using weapons capable of significant destruction are termed ‘selective targets’ and a head-on attack on a country that has practically no operational capacity to respond is deemed a ‘humanitarian mission’,” said Barcelona’s El Periodico.

“It would be good if the misleading rhetoric about good and bad weapons was ended as swiftly as the war itself,” agreed Austria’s Kurier.

The press in France, Greece, Hungary and Switzerland condemned the unilateral US-British invasion of Iraq, raising fears that the war had opened a Pandora’s box of problems that would be difficult to contain or remedy.

“This war marks the carefully weighed and calculated wish of those that govern in the White House to upset the rules of the game in the world,” said Switzerland’s Le Temps, rejecting US policy as “the cynical use of power as an apparent response to blind fanaticism”.

Hungary’s papers said war in the absence of UN authorization had demolished the existing world order and Europe would now have to build a new security system to counterbalance the United States.

“(It) might cut the number of dark dictatorships but it is an example that military power can be abused without restrictions,” the liberal Magyar Hirlap paper said. “From this moment on, any country can expect military retaliation if it fails to serve the interests of the strongest superpower. The UN could calmly dissolve and hand over its authority to US legislation.”

“History teaches us that the strongest can only have servants but not friends,” it warned, adding, perhaps a touch ironically: “It is fortunate that the US is a democratic superpower.”

Editorialists in Greece, Italy and Hungary deplored the inability of European Union leaders, who held a summit on Iraq on Friday, to stand up to Washington.

“The spring summit proved the EU is not yet mature enough to take the big step of freeing itself from US tutelage,” sighed right-wing Athens’ daily Kathimerini.

“(EU leaders) refused to take a stand on the most burning issues, including whether the military action in Iraq is in compliance with international law,” grumbled Hungary’s left-wing Nepszava.

Papers in France, which has spearheaded opposition to the war, warned there was a “serious risk” the invasion could spark conflict between Ankara and the separatist-leaning Kurdish community in the region spanning southeastern Turkey and northern Iraq.

“A fire is smoldering under the Americans’ feet on Iraq’s northern frontier,” said the Journal du Centre.

In Turkey, which on Friday agreed after weeks of resistance to allow US planes to use its airspace to attack Iraq, the concern was more about the future of Ankara’s ties with its NATO ally, Washington.

“The issues of airspace and northern Iraq have shaken a 50-year-old strategic partnership,” headlined liberal paper Radikal.

As for the prospects of the post-war world, Romania’s Adevarul forecast: “(Washington) will also try to suppress the UN, NATO and the EU”

Bulgaria’s right-wing Standard predicted: “The US will wrest control of Iraq’s oil reserves and will dictate world oil prices.”