Posted on 11/05/2004 12:28:33 AM PST by AL Mamlouk
The French president has decided to leave an EU summit just before a meeting with interim Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi. Mr Allawi is due to join EU leaders as guest of honour at the summit lunch in Brussels.
But Jacques Chirac, an outspoken critic of the war in Iraq, says he has prior engagements and will not attend.
Correspondents say the move is seen as a clear snub to Mr Allawi who has called for broader involvement in Iraq.
Mr Allawi has urged "spectator countries" to become actively involved in the reconstruction of Iraq.
The EU leaders are expected to present a multi-million dollar aid package to Mr Allawi at the meeting.
The money will be used to provide technical advice and support for the Iraqi elections, planned for January.
Mr Allawi, on a European tour, made his plea for wider participation in his country after a meeting with Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi in Rome on Thursday.
The BBC's Tim Franks, in Brussels, says one EU foreign minister said his comments were pointed rather than helpful.
Mr. Chirac will live to regret this. It was smallminded and from a small man.
Jockstrap Chirac is "studentless"
NO CLASS!
I will never, ever stop regretting our having selflessly liberated these ridiculous wastes of skin, back during WWII.
France cannot seem to change its "Colonial Power" mindset.
Jack is not going to be in a good mood for awhile after Tuesday's results.
I'm amazed they still think this isn't a permanent situation. It is.
Jacques makes me sick. Most of France makes me sick. They are NOT friends of the US.
This would have been a good time for Chirac to shutup.
Yes, and it's typical of him telling the Eastern European countries, candidate EU members, that they had "missed a good opportunity to be quiet", after several had expressed support for the invasion of Iraq.
Chirac had been friends with Saddam since 1970. In fact, he negotiated the sale of the French-built nuclear plant, named Osiris, to Iraq. Unfortunately for Saddam, the Israelis took it out in 1981.
But Saddam signed over a hundred billion dollars in oil and other contracts to France in the year or so before the invasion. Chirac wiggled, back-stabbed, manipulated the U.N., anything to save his sugar-daddy but to no avail.
Now he's mad, he doesn't control the new president of Iraq, and he's lost all those incredibly juicy contracts. No wonder he can't stand Bush.:)
He just can't get over it.
You're right, the poor frog probably has the mother of all migraines.:)
They're lucky we're Christians enough that we save them from Hitler...
and this man Jacques Chirac wants to create his own world... why dont we send him to Jupiter to start a new one?
Frenchie knows he was wrong, and doesn't want to be further embarrassed.
F
THE
FRENCH
"Hey Jacques ... I'm here for the (BLEEPING)money you looted from our people the last 15 years you SOB!"
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