On 18 September 2002, four days before Schröder's re-election, she attended a meeting at a restaurant in Derendingen (near Tübingen) with about 30 trade unionists from two local factories (the topic was "Globalization and Labor"). Däubler-Gmelin, who has long been known for her outspokenness, later said she had been unaware that a reporter from local newspaper "Schwäbisches Tagblatt" was present, insisting that she regarded the event as an internal meeting. After discussion had turned to the Iraq crisis, she remarked that U.S. president Bush was preparing a war to detract from domestic problems such as the economic crisis at the time, and that this was a popular political strategy which had already been used by Adolf Hitler. When some participants showed disagreement, she added immediately that this was not meant to liken Bush to Hitler as a person, but rather to compare their methods, and that British prime minister Margaret Thatcher had also used the 1982 Falklands War to improve election prospects. She also described the U.S. legal system as "lousy".