Posted on 03/13/2003 6:54:17 PM PST by George W. Bush
Brit: Despite its record of seeming solicitude for Saddam Hussein's regime, France has never gone as far out on a limb for the Iraqi dictator as it appears this time. For more on the reasons why, we turn to Fox News contributor Marc Ginsberg, former ambassador to Morocco and the man who's advised presidents on the Middle East going back 25 years or more. Welcome. Nice to have you.
Ginsberg: Thank you, Brit.
Brit: How much does this relationship between Iraq and France have to do with Jacques Chirac himself? I remember covering the first President Bush and the president of France gave that Bush administration some trouble. But it wasn't like this.
Ginsberg: Brit, this is an odd couple relationship. It goes back to 1974 when Chirac, the youngest prime minister in France went to Baghdad on his debutante diplomatic trip to the Middle East. His first stop was Baghdad. And that is where he and Saddam developed a personal relationship that has spanned a period of almost three decades.
Brit: Now, personal relationships alone probably would not account for policy at this level being so strikingly favorable, at least compared to much of the rest of the world, anyway, to Baghdad. I’ve heard all these stories about business relationships and I always thought, well, maybe that's a factor. How big a factor?
Ginsberg: It is a significant factor. It doesn't explain the whole story, Brit. Essentially when you look at the numbers and understand the history here, ever since 1967 when Charles De Gaulle invested strategic partnership with Israel and when Israel essentially went to war and against De Gaulle's wishes, the French invested in Iraq as their next strategic partner. From the period of time that when Chirac helped organize the sale of two nuclear reactors to Saddam, Saddam went to Paris, by the way, to visit his nuclear reactors as well as France --
Brit: You mean when they were being built?
Ginsberg: One of those nuclear reactors were taken out by Israel in 1981. The amount of trade in military hardware alone between France and Iraq totaled $25 billion. France essentially provided most of Iraq's air force as well as military equipment. Since sanctions were imposed, that was an additional $3.5 billion --
Brit: Since sanctions?
Ginsberg: Since sanctions, $3.5 billion and just in the year 2001 alone, that number of trade of $650 million made France the largest trading partner with Iraq.
Brit: Now, the French obviously have, you know, more at stake in this, of course, the business, Chirac's person relationship. It’s been speculated by people that even at this late hour, that France might come around. Do you see any way that's possible at this stage?
Ginsberg: Chirac is gambling with the future of his relationship with the United States. And it is quite clear that it is a man who actually believe that is providence has designated him as the next intermediary between the Muslim world and the Anglo Saxon world. He believes that is war is the worst-case scenario. When you get below the surface and look at not only the way in which Chirac is operating, but what France has at stake, a 20% Muslim population --
Brit: 20%? I thought it was 10%.
Ginsberg: 20% of its population is Muslim. When you look at the amount of money that French oil companies have at stake in Iraq, when you look at the long-term investment in a relationship, it is not just Chirac, it goes throughout the French political establishment where the relationship between France and Saddam has been a core relationship of its ties in the Middle East. It says a great deal of why France believes that we are picking on its number one client state in the region.
Brit: Now France, of course, is -- I’ve heard the relationship with France and Iraq likened to the u.s. relationship with Saudi Arabia. Is that a fair comparison?
Ginsberg: Yeah. In some respects it is. When you look at the commitment that indeed the French have made to lift sanctions, to provide military equipment, to condemn countries that have stood in the way -- look, a French parliamentary delegation went to Iraq just a few years ago and called sanctions a creeping genocide of the Iraqi people. There is a clear investment of a bilateral tie where the French, political and business establishment has invested heavily in its future with Saddam. Removing Saddam is a threat to all of these ties.
Brit: All right.
Ginsberg: And that is one of the concerns that is I think many of us have about this particular predicament that we find with Chirac right now.
Brit: Here was France only months ago, involved deeply in the drafting of Resolution 1441, which was when it was finally passed unanimously, quite a tough document. I mean, the French were saying today they don't believe in ultimatums. But that was an ultimatum. It was disarm now or face serious consequences. They used the word "immediate." It was very strong. How to account for that?
Ginsberg: I think it could come down, and this is just my own opinion, Brit. I think in the end where this got complicated and where the French decided to make a total retreat from 1441 is because they thought that they could get Iraq to disarm without regime change. The minute the United States began inserting regime change as the overall objective, and that is in effect the ending of Saddam's relationship over its ties, his control over Iraq, that's when I think the French decided this is going too far. Removing Saddam undermines the entire investment that the French have started since 1974. Had we stuck clearly and only to disarmament, perhaps the French would have stayed with us.
Brit: Marc Ginsberg, good to have you, sir. Thank you very much.
Hume's interviews make his show not only the best among the cable and network shows but also gives it the depth of PBS's News Hour in terms of analysis but without the PBS Leftish spin.
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