Last week, the Polish government announced that its commandos had found French-built Roland anti-aircraft missiles in Iraq with "2003" stamped on them. This was a big deal to the French, because their beloved U.N. passed a resolution in 1991 barring such sales. The French immediately went into spin mode, first with a denunciation by their spokeswoman claiming France had not "licensed" any sales to Iraq after 1991 (implying they had sold missiles to Saddam using Syria as a cutout in between them). Then, Chirac came out and claimed these missiles hadn't been produced since 1993 (yet didn't claim no sales of missiles produced before 1993 had gone out this year). I put up two blurbs at
TastyManatees.com on the issue. Note, I have
not edited or retracted them. Let me put it bluntly, I considered running a retraction of some sort after Chirac made his statement, but decided against it. I don't trust the French spin, and I personally think the French sold anti-aircraft missiles to Saddam.
Here's why. The Polish commandos weren't idiots. When they had the missiles in front of them, they knew exactly what they were looking at when they saw missiles stamped with "2003" on them. Either that was the manufacturing date or the shipping date. Neither would make the French sales to Saddam any more palatable.
Neither is Chirac an idiot, he knows how easily he can push Poland around, and he knows how much credibility France would lose in claiming the supremacy of the U.N. if she was demonstrated to be in violation of a security council resolution. Poland is currently a "candidate country" trying to gain acceptance into the European Union. Chirac has shown his willingness to play hardball in the past, and I believe he called the Polish president and told him to do what he was told or else. Although there is no evidence of it, I'm guessing the Polish defense minister's head was the price Poland had to pay to keep France from opposing their entry into the EU or doing something equally as unpleasant. Note that no one from Poland's armed forces has come forward and explained how a "mistake" was made. One would think the technical details of how they mistook "2003" for, say "1988", would be important to the believability of the apology. Thus, I don't think the Polish president's actions or the resignation of the defense minister has anything to do with an error on their part.
Tasty Manatees Although there is no evidence of it, I'm guessing the Polish defense minister's head was the price Poland had to pay to keep France from opposing their entry into the EU or doing something equally as unpleasant. There is something else - France/Germany/Italy control big part of Polish economy including banks ("privatized" in fire sale shock "therapy" a few years ago). The another large economical partner is Russia with whom Poland runs large deficts.
Trade with USA is only 3%.
" missiles stamped with "2003" on them. Either that was the manufacturing date or the shipping date." Why would it have to be one of these two? It could be a lot-number, and expiration date, a reference number of some sort, a re-shipping date. It said "KDN 2003" What does "KDN" refer to? It doesn't look French as use the letter "k" is a fairly rare occurance in french ( more like the frequency of a "z" or "Q" in english). It seems hasty to limit it to "shpping or mfg date.
