PARIS –– British Prime Minister Tony Blair fails to persuade France to join coalition ready to take quick action against Iraq.
It was fun to write to the French Ambassador, reminding him of the glories of France and suggesting that Chirac was behaving like Daladier, rather than Clemanceau, like Petain rather than Foch. And telling him that the French stand would only ensure the marginalization of France as a power with no longer even the pretence of a right to a seat at the top table.
France gives clear hint it could use veto against desert attack
TIM CORNWELL DEPUTY FOREIGN EDITOR
FRANCE launched a "war against the war" yesterday as the foreign minister, Dominique de Villepin, said his country planned to mobilise the European Union to avert a war with Iraq.
"It is important that Europe speak on this issue with a single voice. We are mobilised, we believe war can be avoided," Mr de Villepin said.
The French foreign minister was speaking a day after launching an outspoken attack on US war plans at a high-level meeting of the UN Security Council in New York.
"Since we can disarm Iraq through peaceful means, we should not take the risk to endanger the lives of innocent civilians or soldiers, to jeopardise the stability of the region, and further widen the gap between our people and our cultures," he had told the meeting of foreign ministers. "We should not take the risk to fuel terrorism."
His clear hint that France might use its Security Council veto against military action seemed to rattle US policy makers and irritate the US president, George Bush.
In meetings with US officials France has demanded a delay in military action of two months or more. French calls for war to be averted altogether appeared to have won the backing of Germany and China.
But putting military action on hold, on the basis that UN weapons inspectors are working hard in Iraq and need more time to finish the job, would alarm US war planners.
They fear that searing summer temperatures, which set in by mid-April, would cripple the ability of US troops to function effectively - particularly in chemical weapons suits.
Mr de Villepin’s words may be more shocking to Washington, coming as they do from a career diplomat who spent five years in France’s US embassy and has voiced his admiration of the United States.
Mr de Villepin is known to be a close confidant of the French president, Jacques Chirac, having served as his chief of staff.
Mr Chirac has appeared to waver on policy towards Iraq. A recent warning to the French people to prepare themselves for war raised suspicion that he was hedging his bets in another case of crafty French diplomacy.
But Mr Chirac is mindful of the opinions of Europe’s largest Muslim population, and of polls showing public sentiment running strongly against military action, commentators say. He may have opted to show European leadership by threatening to use the Security Council veto power that France has so jealously defended in the past.
Speaking after talks with his Belgian counterpart, Louis Michel, yesterday, Mr de Villepin said a 27 January report to the UN Security Council by arms inspectors hunting Iraq’s suspected weapons of mass destruction would only be an "interim report".
France chairs the Security Council this month. "We see no justification today for a [military] intervention, since the inspectors are able to do their work. We could not support unilateral action," Mr de Villepin said.
France opened its campaign at a UN meeting of foreign ministers on Monday. The leading French newspaper, Le Monde, called it the launch of "the war against the war"; the Washington Post dubbed it the "diplomatic version of an ambush".
He said he would use a meeting of the 15 EU foreign ministers in Brussels next Monday and Tuesday to seek a united stance on the issue.
EU diplomats say most member states are apprehensive about a possible conflict and fear the timetable is being driven not by Iraqi behaviour but by the best weather conditions for a US military strike.
Belgium’s Mr Michel said he shared Mr de Villepin’s view.
"We really think there is a diplomatic, political space to be exploited, and that perhaps the European Union could play that role," he said.
France on Monday won the firm backing of the German foreign minister, Joschka Fischer, who warned of "unpredictable consequences" for the fight against terrorism.
China’s foreign minister, Tang Jiaxuan, backed a go-slow approach, saying at a news conference that the 27 January inspectors’ report is "not a full stop of the inspection work but a new beginning".
In Washington yesterday, the president, George Bush, responded with rising frustration. He said he was ready to lead a "coalition of the willing" against Saddam Hussein.
"This business about more time, how much time do we need to see clearly that he’s not disarming?" Mr Bush said. "Time is running out."
In a flash of impatience aimed at his reluctant allies, Mr Bush call the situation a "re-run of a bad movie" and said: "Surely our friends have learned lessons from the past."
The White House had earlier urged world leaders to avoid the "dead-end road" of the 1990s when, it said, Iraq flouted UN resolutions against weapons of mass destruction.
Whitehouse spokesman Ari Fleischer said Mr Bush had gone to the UN last September in an effort to "to put spine into the United Nations and the rest of the international community".
It appeared clear yesterday that France was laying the ground ahead of the inspectors’ report on 27 January on 60 days of searches for weapons on mass destruction.
One top UN weapons inspector, Mohamed El Baradei, handed ammunition to the doubters yesterday when he said his teams needed more time.
"We need quite a few months before we complete our job and that is what I’m going to report to the Security Council next week," said Mr El Baradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency.
"We ... understand that there is lots of impatience in the international community and there is mobilisation. We are aware of that," he said. "But I hope that this will not affect our ability to continue to press for disarming Iraq."
Turkey, another potential key ally, yesterday urged the US and Britain to listen to popular protests against war and said Middle Eastern leaders had agreed to meet this week to press for a peaceful solution.
Tayyip Erdogan, head of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) which swept the Turkish elections last year, told a meeting of his party’s parliamentary deputies that Turkey was doing all it could to avoid conflict.
This article:
http://www.thescotsman.co.uk/index.cfm?id=84242003
Posturing-pure and simple.They won't join the coalition but will tag along. France is like a kid with a new toy that won't play with other kids on the block. History will remember France as the the only nation that surrendered without firing a shot, rounded up its own Jewish people without being asked, scuttled her Navy instead of joining the Allies, sang and danced for the Nazis in cabarets and theatres, Told us that ALL Frenchmen were part of the resistance, Gave us Viet Nam, Sold a nuclear reactor to Iraq, Doesn't permmit US overflights, Didn't join NATO,never relinquished its colonial interests in Africa, And threatens to use the Veto we granted them at the UN after we saved them in WW2. The French are stinkers and everyone knows it.
At the outbreak of WW II, it is reported that when Winston Churchill was reminded in conversation that Italy would actively support Germany, he repiled: "That's only fair. We had to have them in the last war."
*Just for that, I'm boycotting french fries. Let's see how they like that.*
LOL! and French salad dressing too!! And French Bread!
Change the name from Paris to Islamabad. When the germs arrive on the left bank...don't call us. Weasels.
Well, If the French aren't involved who is going to show the Iraqies how to surrender?
