Nobel doubts: Obama's prize debated

by Mark Silva

While members of the Nobel Committee that awarded President Barack Obama the Peace Prize have defended their decision -- particularly the outspoken chairman of the five-member committee -- a Norwegian newspaper reports today that there were some serious doubts heading into that private vote of a panel whose deliberations are supposed to be confidential.

Most members of the Norwegian Nobel Committee initially argued against awarding the 2009 Nobel Prize for Peace to Obama before agreeing to the choice, Norway's top-selling daily Verdens Gang reported today. Three of the five had objections early in the process, the paper reports, but were persuaded mainly by the chairman, former Norwegian Prime Minister Thorbjoern Jagland.

The paper cited sources for a rare leak of the committee's work, meant to be kept secret for 50 years. Committee members are appointed by Norway's Parliament. but are meant to act independently.

All of the members believed that Obama had taken "solid initiatives toward nuclear disarmament and reconciliation,'' the paper reports. Instead, the debate focused on how much Obama had actually achieved during less than nine months in office. One of the newest members Aagot Valle from the Socialist Left Party, had strong objections to giving the prize to Obama.

"I had expected a debate, especially around the issues I find problematic, the war in Afghanistan," Valle told daily Bergens Tidende earlier this week.

Publicly, however, Valle also has rejected any suggestion that the prize was awarded without merit. "Don't you think that comments like that patronize Obama? Where do these people come from?" Valle said earlier this week. "Well, of course, all arguments have to be considered seriously. I'm not afraid of a debate on the peace prize decision. That's fine."

Inger-Marie Ytterhorn, a former member of Parliament for the opposition right-wing Progress Party, believed it was too early for Obama to win the prize, according to the paper. Kaci Kullman Five, the Conservative Party's leader from 1991-94, also voiced opinions against the decision, the paper reported.

"The decision was unanimous," Jagland said when announcing the prize. Jagland, of the ruling Labour Party, also is Secretary-General for the Council of Europe. Jagland had strongly supported Obama as his top choice, the paper reported. He reportedly was suported throughout by the other Labour appointee, Sissel Marie Roenbeck.

"We simply disagree that he has done nothing," committee chairman Jagland told the Associated Press earlier this week. "He got the prize for what he has done.''

At least one observer suggests that the award has generated far more controversy in the United States, where Obama was among those most surprised by the prize and the $1.4 million that comes with it -- the president plans to give it to charity. In Europe, a German Marshall Fund analyst writes, the prize is a measure of newfound U.S. standing in the world.

Former President Jimmy Carter, who won the Peace Prize in 2002, said today in Atlanta that Obama deserves the award "as much as anyone who's ever gotten it for his achievement already." Carter says Obama has ""transformed the image of America around the world" and won the award because of his work banning torture, working to rid the world of nuclear weapons and pursuing Mideast peace.

Wire services contributed to this report.