Posted on 04/29/2003 6:11:26 AM PDT by mountaineer
Mocking la perfide Albion has been a national pastime in France for centuries, but the documents that are now being disinterred from the smouldering embers of Saddam Hussein's regime suggest that perfidy would be rather a polite word for the conduct of Jacques Chirac and the French government towards their allies.
Elsewhere in today's Telegraph, Alex Spillius reports that papers found in the Iraqi foreign ministry show how, as recently as three years ago, French diplomats from the Quai d'Orsay were colluding with agents from IRIS (the Iraqi Intelligence Service, better known as the Mukhabarat) to frustrate efforts by the Iraqi opposition and the British-based human rights group Indict to highlight atrocities in Iraq at a conference in Paris.
Other documents include a warm thank-you letter from Saddam to M Chirac in response to the French president's campaign to end UN sanctions, a deal between Peugeot and Baghdad, and mysterious payments from IRIS to beneficiaries in France.
The picture that emerges is not a pretty one. Material from the same Iraqi ministry published elsewhere suggests that French diplomats were keeping Baghdad informed about Bush-Chirac summits and other talks between Washington and Paris. This entente cordiale with the Ba'athist dictatorship provides a new context in which to consider M Chirac's refusal to countenance a Security Council resolution to authorise military action "under any circumstances". At the time, this was seen as a typically Gaullist "Non!", a rhetorical gesture of defiance to the Anglo-American coalition. It appears that M Chirac was also trying to preserve a Franco-Iraqi nexus that now looks quite sinister.
The significance of these intimate links with Saddam will not be lost on America. The Bush Administration's anger with the French was publicly reiterated last week by the Secretary of State, Colin Powell, and in Washington high-level meetings are being held to finalise punitive measures. In Paris, the response so far has vacillated between nervous appeasement and brazen provocation.
M Chirac rang the White House to propose a plan, apparently intended to be conciliatory, to establish a role for Nato in Iraq. However, one of the measures being considered in Washington is to downgrade the French role at Nato. Moreover, just as M Chirac was trying to ingratiate himself, his foreign minister, Dominique de Villepin, was making a surprise visit to another member of the "axis of evil", Iran, which had just been warned by Washington not to interfere in Iraq.
Tony Blair, who has even more reason than George Bush to feel double-crossed by the French government over Iraq, should be in no hurry to forgive, let alone to forget.
France colluded with the Iraqi secret service to undermine a Paris conference held by the prominent human rights group Indict, according to documents found in the foreign ministry in Baghdad.
Various documents state that the Iraqis believed the French were doing their utmost to prevent the meeting from going ahead.
Ann Clwyd, the Labour MP who chairs Indict, said last night that she would be demanding an apology from the French government for its behaviour, which she described as "atrocious".
The files, retrieved from the looted and burned foreign ministry by The Telegraph last week, detail the warmth and strength of Iraqi-French ties.
They include a six-page letter dated February 1998 from Saddam Hussein to Jacques Chirac, welcoming the French president's support in the campaign against sanctions and assuring him that Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction.
The documents regarding Indict show that pro-Saddam elements, "Iraqi and Arab brothers", gained access to the conference, which opened on April 14, 2000, at the Hotel La Concorde Lafayette.
Indict's attempt to mount a protest outside the Iraqi ambassador's residence was foiled by the authorities.
A month after the meeting, a letter headed "Role of Southern France" (sic) from Saddam's office authorised the finance ministry to pay $383,439 to undisclosed beneficiaries.
Perhaps the most damning document is from the Iraqi intelligence service, Iris. The service, known as the Mukhabarat in Iraq, operated as the domestic secret police and as an external intelligence agency.
Its role abroad was to collect intelligence, murder opponents and maintain relations with friendly groups. The document, dated March 28, 2000, is from the head of Iris to Saddam's office.
At the time the organisation was run by Tahir Jalil al-Habbush, number 14 on America's wanted list. The letter appears to be written by a different hand from one revealed last week purporting to record that George Galloway benefited from contracts under the oil for food programme. But it carries the same signature.
It states that "one of our sources" met the "deputy spokesman" of the French foreign ministry, "with whom he has good relations".
It claims that the spokesman from the justice and interior ministries had sought to find a legal way of preventing the Indict meeting.
The paper said it had been agreed that no Iraqi opposition leaders would be granted visas for France to attend the conference. It is not clear if Iraqis living outside the country were granted visas.
Although the conference went ahead, the Iraqis regarded moves to undermine it as a striking success.
A memo dated April 18, 2000, was sent to Saddam's office by the then foreign minister, Mohammad Said al-Sahaf, who later became the information minister nicknamed "Comical Ali". It is headed "The Failed Enemy Conference in Paris" and says that the French media ignored the event.
Miss Clwyd, MP for Cynon Valley, recalled various attempts at disruption.
Saddam supporters staged a protest outside before it started, she said, and at one point a bomb scare led to the hall having to be evacuated.
Victims of Saddam's regime gave evidence at the conference and filming was strictly forbidden because they feared being identified.
But someone smuggled in a camera and started filming, Miss Clwyd said.
"The police were called. But they could not take the film from the man because he was an Iraqi accredited to the Moroccan embassy."
The French foreign ministry denied collusion.
A Quai d'Orsay source said it should not come as a surprise that French officials met Iraqi intelligence officers in Baghdad. But he denied accusations of specific collaboration to disrupt the conference.
Paris and Berlin prepare alliance to rival Nato
From Charles Bremner in Paris
EUROPE’S self-inflicted wounds over Iraq will be on display tomorrow, when the leaders of France and Germany — dubbed the “Axis of Weasels” in America — start to try to lay the groundwork for a European Union military alliance that would compete with Nato.
At a meeting in Brussels with the Prime Ministers of Belgium and Luxembourg, President Chirac and Gerhard Schröder, the German Chancellor, want to clear the way for a common European defence system that would start with a core of volunteer states. rest of article.
What rotten scum are the French. Bush and Blair must make them hurt!!!
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