Belly Girl never gets old!
Posted on 04/04/2004 6:35:07 PM PDT by knak
The French government offered a surprise compromise to the US president, George Bush, in the run-up to the war in Iraq, according to a detailed investigation published in Vanity Fair this week.
The report undermines the public perception of France standing resolutely against the US and Britain in the United Nations security council as the two countries tried to win a second resolution in support of war.
According to a 25,000-word investigation into the diplomatic wranglings in that pre-war period, the French government was offering to cut a behind-the-scenes deal with the US government.
At a lunch in the White House on January 13 last year, Maurice Gourdault-Montagne, an adviser to the president, Jacques Chirac, and Jean-David Levitte, the French ambassador in Washington, put the deal to Condoleezza Rice, the US national security adviser.
In an effort to avoid a bitter US-French row, the French officials suggested that if the US was intent on war, it should not seek the second resolution, according to highly placed US sources cited by Vanity Fair.
Instead, the two said that the first resolution on Iraq, 1441, passed the previous year, provided enough legal cover for war and that France would keep quiet if the US went to war on that basis.
The deal would suit the French by maintaining its "good cop" status in the Arab world and safeguarding Franco-US relations.
But the deal died when Tony Blair led a doomed attempt to secure a second resolution to try to satisfy Labour MPs and government lawyers who questioned the legitimacy of the war. France ultimately vetoed the resolution.
The investigation also claims that Mr Blair and Mr Bush discussed war against Iraq only nine days after the attack on New York on September 11 2001, even though Mr Blair was insisting up until just before the Iraq war began on March 20 last year that no decision had been taken.
Sir Christopher Meyer, the former British ambassador to Washington, is quoted in Vanity Fair as saying Mr Blair told Mr Bush over dinner that the US president should not be distracted by Iraq from the war against al-Qaida.
But Mr Bush replied: "I agree with you, Tony. We must deal with this first. But when we have dealt with Afghanistan, we must come back to Iraq."
Sir Christopher said it was clear "that when we did come back to Iraq, it wouldn't be to discuss smarter sanctions". The government line is that war was never inevitable because Mr Blair and his foreign secretary, Jack Straw, successfully pressed the US to go down the UN route, which it did, and that Iraq could have avoided war by complying with UN demands.
In another twist, the US secretary of state, Colin Powell, admitted over the weekend that his claim at a UN security council meeting before the war about Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction might have been incorrect. He told US reporters that his allegation that Iraq had mobile laboratories for preparing WMD might not have been based, as he claimed at the time, on solid evidence.
Mr Powell said: "I'm not the intelligence community, but I probed and I made sure, as I said in my presentation, these are multi-sourced. Now, if the sources fell apart we need to find out how we've gotten ourselves in that position."
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Ah, of course. If the public were to ever perceive that France is capable of standing resolutely then France's reputation would be shot all to hell.
Belly Girl never gets old!
"Oui. Oui."
THE REAL DEAL
=========== French missiles FIRST given to Iraq to be USED Against US and Coalition Heroes =========
French missiles found by the Poles, and to protect France, blown up.
Froggies said they did not say "2003". LOL. Decide for yourself.
Flag of Frabia 
In an effort to avoid a bitter US-French row, the French officials suggested that if the US was intent on war, it should not seek the second resolution, according to highly placed US sources cited by Vanity Fair.
Part of the "frame Condi" game. Did they tell Powell? Doesn't mention Villepin's broken promises to Powell - our secretary of State it seems to be forgotten here.
French here get in the first strike by defining their backstab as something other than it was, and deflect attention from their money interests in supporting Saddam. A rewrite of history. NOt much different than how Kerry and Clarke and such are defining the Iraq waqr to their purposes. Bush admin is sleeping at the wheel letting it happen.
Would should blablabla.... How can we realize they were earnest? They had to take an official stand or give us some leverage. This was no deal, it could have been a trap for that matter. Where do they stand on terror? On iraq? What is there to deal in there?
I think it is the French who need to answer question and realize a few things about reality here, not the other way around.
So now they blame us for going to the UN with a 2nd resolution? This is a joke right! After blaming us for avoiding the UN...
"Neaux,neaux, neaux, Monsieur (zpelling?). Wee muzz not let ziss perzepzhun zatz Le France eez
capabull uvv ztandeeng rezolootly take le root. Sacre bleu! Oy, vey! Ach du lieber, evunnn! "
France never acted as a good cop, never got to get Saddam to admit to deals he had with the French in oil for food fraud. this is a joke.
HAHAHAHAhahahahaaaa.....!!!
Check out www.ProtestWarrior.com . They are good people over there.
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