That loathsome, toad-like, unelected bureaucrat Chris Patten—who is actively resisting an investigation of EU funding of Palestinian terror—is threatening that the European Union will not help financially with the reconstruction of Iraq unless the US bends to the will of the United Nations: EU threat to Iraq reconstruction.

Patten told the EU parliament in Strasbourg: “It will be very difficult in any circumstances to launch massive new programs in Iraq and in the neighborhood of Iraq.

“But it will be that much more difficult for the EU to cooperate fully and on a large scale also in the longer-term reconstruction process if events unfold without proper U.N. cover and if the member states remain divided.

“If it comes to war, it will be very much easier to persuade you to be generous if there is no dispute about the legitimacy of the military action that has taken place; about the new political order that emerges thereafter; or about who is in charge of the reconstruction process.”

The EU already has set aside 15 million euros for aid programs in and around Iraq, but Patten said extra cash may be needed from the budget’s emergency reserve.

In a debate marked by hostility to war against Iraq, especially without U.N. legitimacy, Patten said he was not issuing a threat of non-cooperation with the United States but simply making an observation of fact.

“It is in the interests of the whole world that power should be constrained by global rules, and used only with international agreement. What other source of international legitimacy but the U.N. exists for military intervention?”

Patten also challenged U.S. President George W. Bush’s argument that a war to overthrow Iraqi President Saddam Hussein would combat terrorism and spread democracy in the Middle East.

“As a general rule, are wars not more likely to recruit terrorists than to deter them? It is hard to build democracy at the barrel of a gun, when history suggests it is more usually the product of long internal development in a society,” he said.

This one scores a 9.5 on the LGF EuroHate Scale, which goes to 11. Absolutely disgusting.