In an unusual manner, Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder warned of "talking about or merely considering a war against Iraq without thinking of the consequences and without a political conception for the whole Near East."

He also declined to comment on the costs for such a deployment in the framework of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).

Germany is prepared for the solidarity with NATO, but "not for adventures," he told an election campaign rally of his Social Democratic Party in Hannover where his home is located.

Just after the September 11 terrorist attacks in US last year, Germany made clear its "unlimited solidarity" with the US in the war against terrorism while excluding "adventures."

There will be no "pure financial participation" from the German side in such a military action against Iraq, the German leader stressed.

"There will be no such form of work distribution any more, in which Germans don't participate but pay," he noted.

"Germany is no longer a country in which check diplomacy replaces the politics," the chancellor said amid applause before some 1,000 followers of the SPD.

Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer expressed similar positions, saying: "For me, it is a false assessment of priorities to say that a governmental change in Baghdad must be realized with military intervention."

His "deep skepticism" of a possible military strike against Iraq has also been expressed with this statement, he said.

On Tuesday, Schroeder and French President Jacques Chirac said during a French-German summit meeting that they could not support a US military action on Iraq without a United Nations Security Council mandate.

To the government's somewhat hard words on US plans on Iraq, opposition officials said they were aimed to avert German people's attention from internal affairs.

Local media reported on Saturday that unemployment in July surpassed 4-million mark and reached four-year high.

Among all internal issues, the stubbornly unemployment is considered the biggest headache for Schroeder to win another four-year term.

Trailing the opposition Union Party in recent opinion polls, Schroeder's SPD has decided to move up the so-called "hot phase" of election campaign in two weeks to try to regain dominance against the Union Party.

(China Daily August 5, 2002)