- OSLO (Reuters) - President
Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair are among nominees for the 2004
Nobel Peace Prize before a Sunday deadline for nominations despite failure
to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
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- "Nominations are pouring in," said Geir Lundestad,
director of the Norwegian Nobel Institute. He said he gets letters and
up to 1,500 e-mails a day from people either supporting or denouncing candidates.
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- Among nominees are the European Union to mark its expansion
to include former East bloc states. Pope John Paul, the Salvation Army,
former Czech President Vaclav Havel, Chinese dissidents are also among
nominees.
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- "Bush and Blair definitely still deserve it,"
said Jan Simonsen, a right-wing independent member of Norway's parliament
who nominated the two for the 2004 prize shortly after the U.S.-led war
toppled Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein in April.
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- "Even though they haven't found those weapons they
got rid of a dictator and made the world more safe," he told Reuters
on Friday, sticking by the choice. "They got rid of a madman."
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- Saddam's alleged weapons of mass destruction were a main
justification for the war. None have yet been found and Bush's National
Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice admitted on Thursday some pre-war intelligence
was flawed.
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- Nobel watchers say Bush or Blair's chances of winning
are close to nil. The 2002 prize went to ex-U.S. President Jimmy Carter,
who argued against war. The head of the Nobel committee called the choice
a "kick in the legs" to Bush on Iraq.
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- The 2003 prize, worth $1.35 million, went to Iranian
human rights lawyer Shirin Ebadi from a record field of 165 nominees. The
annual deadline for nominations for the award, announced in October, is
February 1.
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- "NOBEL NOMINEE" NO BIG DEAL
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- Espen Barth Eide, a researcher at the Norwegian Institute
of International Affairs, said there were no obvious front-runners for
2004. "If something happens in the Middle East in a positive direction
then that might qualify," he said.
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- Ex-Norwegian Prime Minister Thorbjoern Jagland has nominated
the EU to coincide with its expansion from 25 states from 15 in May and
for bringing decades of peace to Western Europe after centuries of wars.
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- Efforts in nations from Sudan to Sri Lanka to end wars
have hit setbacks. And Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi is too much of a
maverick to have any chance despite pledges to abandon efforts to develop
weapons of mass destruction.
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- Lundestad said many people wrongly believed being a "Nobel
prize nominee" was itself a kind of honor.
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- Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler and former Yugoslav President
Slobodan Milosevic have made it to the list -- every member of all the
world's parliaments, university professors from law to theology, ex-winners
and committee members can submit names.
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- "There are many who do not understand the difference
between a nomination and getting the prize," Lundestad said.
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- He also said he could not cope with a deluge of e-mails
and said he preferred receiving letters or faxes.
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- "There are periods when I receive more than 1,500
e-mails per day, either supporting or denouncing someone," he said,
adding he simply deleted most all of them. "Please don't put my e-mail
address in a story. It's well enough known as it is."
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