France Lied to U.S. During Iraq Crisis (Book Excerpt)(GOOD READ)

Insight Magazine ^ | Posted April 2, 2004 | By Kenneth R. Timmerman

[Jewels1091]

For Secretary of State Colin Powell, the U.S.-French divorce began on Jan. 20, 2003, when French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin blindsided him during a press conference outside the U.N.

After a special session of the Security Council devoted to the war on terror, held at de Villepin's personal request, Powell had driven over to the French U.N. ambassador's official Park Avenue residence, where de Villepin was to host him to an exclusive lunch.

Instead, de Villepin stayed behind at the U.N. and announced to the world that France would never support a U.S.-led military intervention against Saddam Hussein. As Powell saw the man he thought was his friend appear on the video monitors in the French ambassador's residence his jaws dropped, says his deputy and confidant, Richard Armitage. "He was very unamused," Armitage recalls. "When he's unamused, he gets pretty cold. He puts the eyes on you and there is no doubt when his jaws are jacked. It's not a pretty sight."

During the session, de Villepin "preened and postured," recalled a deputy to U.S. Ambassador John Negroponte. After a tepid homage to the victims of 9/11, de Villepin urged the United Nations to take over the global fight against terror by sending international bureaucrats to Third World nations that were harboring or sponsoring terrorist groups. He wanted the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund to get involved, and proposed a new international arms-control treaty to track the commercial use and shipment of radioactive materials, surely a move that would prove as useful in preventing nuclear terrorism as the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty has been in preventing nations such as Israel, Pakistan, India and North Korea from going nuclear.

"Let us look at things with lucidity," the Frenchman said finally, his voice quivering with compassion. "Terrorism feeds on injustice. So an equitable model of development is therefore necessary to definitely eradicate terrorism."

After briefly summarizing these proposals, which no one took seriously, de Villepin told the news cameras that he now wanted to say "a few words" about Iraq. That caught Powell's ear.

[XJarhead]

[French] President Jacques Chirac hurled another cannonball. "War is always an admission of defeat,"

Especially if you're French.

[Michael81Dus]

Oh, she (or he)´s not attacking me, we´re just discussing the role my country played before the war against Iraq.

I wished that this country would perish from earth and we could go on... I mean, Iraq isn´t worth that hundreds of US soldiers lose their lives - but allowing an Islamo-Fascist regime there would be as if one would kill the dead a second time.

[Jewels1091]

"War is always an admission of defeat,"

Wonder if he includes WWII in that statement????

[UnbelievingScumOnTheOtherSide]

>>"The problem with you Americans," de Villepin hectored a visiting United States senator in Paris last December, "is that you don't read Machiavelli."

>"And the problem with you French," Ed countered, "is that you read nothing else."

Oh, I think they probably read Plunkitt as well.

[ride the whirlwind]

...de Villepin "preened and postured...."

He's good at that.