That's (I Like Iraq) Chirac on the far right Saddam second from the left.
And the reason they're wearing white coats is .... ?
Posted on 03/01/2003 4:48:42 AM PST by Quilla
AS FRANCE'S political leaders feign high-mindedness in their opposition to waging war in Iraq, could it be that a little-publicized threat of blackmail--issued by none other than Saddam Hussein a year after France sided with the United States in the first Gulf War--weighs ever so slightly in the back of their minds?
The threat by the Iraqi leader, published here for the first time in English, was reported in a 1992 French book, now out of print, titled "Notre Allié Saddam" (Our Ally Saddam). Here's what Saddam said:
As for financiers, industrialists and above all those responsible for military industry, the question must be put to French politicians: Who did not benefit from these business contracts and relationships with Iraq? . . . With respect to the politicians, one need only refer back to the declarations of all the political parties of France, Right and Left. All were happy to brag about their friendship with Iraq and to refer to common interests. From Mr. Chirac [now the center-right president] to Mr. Chevenement [the socialist former defense minister] . . . politicians and economic leaders were in open competition to spend time with us and flatter us. We have now grasped the reality of the situation [of France's support for the 1991 Gulf War, a betrayal in Saddam's eyes]. If the trickery continues, we will be forced to unmask them, all of them, before the French public.
Author-journalists Claude Angeli and Stéphanie Mesnier had prompted this response by asking Saddam about financial ties between his regime and French industrialists and politicians, specifically inquiring: "Has Iraq financially supported French politicians and political parties?"
It's a query that has come up periodically in the French press, and been hotly denied by French politicians. Reporters such as Angeli, and others at newspapers such as Le Monde, Libération, and La Tribune, have documented tangential links, but are still searching for a smoking gun. And, in an outcome that has become a traditional feature of French corruption investigations--such as the 1998 parliamentary inquiry into the role of French oil companies in the country's foreign policy, as well as a 2001 judicial inquiry into political-party financing--few whistle-blowers have turned up, let alone paper trails.
What is known is this: French businesses, led by the oil conglomerates, established warm and profitable relationships with Iraq's Baathist regime dating back to the 1970s, when Iraq ditched Anglo-American companies and nationalized its oil industry. Again, after the 1991 Gulf War, French companies moved aggressively into the business channels opened up by the U.N.'s oil-for-food deal with Iraq. France's defense industry has also profited from sales to Iraq. What's the difference between this and, say, past U.S. commercial ties to Baghdad? The socialist economic model that links both France and Iraq: As is widely documented, few business deals between the state-controlled conglomerates are made without heavy massaging by French politicians.
So, if there's something to the line of questioning about financial support from Baghdad to Paris--and decades of cozy relations among leading politicians certainly suggests it's worth finding out--then what could be worse for France's top political dogs than to be outed by Saddam himself?
He has threatened to expose all ties if they should betray him by supporting war again. Lo and behold, France's leaders continue to oppose disarming Saddam by force, even as their stance meets criticism from their own backbenchers and harms France's relations with its European neighbors.
The trouble with this appeasement strategy--if indeed the French pols are hiding something--is that they'll probably get caught anyway. After Saddam is ousted from Baghdad, the dissidents who take power are sure to open up the country's archives, East Germany-style, and expose any complicity and impropriety that oiled the channels between France and the Iraqi ancien régime.
Better for the French ruling class to come clean now. That's the only way it can salvage any dignity at all.
The French ruling class just never learns, do they?
I was about to say that it's time to bring back the tumbrils, but of course, they would have to be driven by the members of France's extremely left-wing and corrupt transit worker unions, so I guess that wouldn't work this time around. They're all in it together, the very left and the very corrupt.
Interesting choice of words. All that needs to be added is 'let's move on, we have work to do'. As I read this article I couldn't help but think that Chirac should call Bill Clinton for advice on how to get out of this little pickle.
Dignity? French? In the same sentence?
Source: the Observer, for example, at http://www.observer.co.uk/business/story/0,6903,900867,00.html
That's (I Like Iraq) Chirac on the far right Saddam second from the left.
And the reason they're wearing white coats is .... ?
Iraqi oil, two-thirds of which is being snapped up by US companies, can only be paid for in euros.
Sorry but most people on this forum don't believe undocumented assertions made by the likes of the anti-American Observer. In fact we assume they are inaccurate.
They are in a CHEESE factory.
Notice where these "gentlemen" are standing. Inside a partially constructed nuclear reactor containment vessel. The very one that France sold to Saddam.
You know...Tammuz:
The one the Israelis took care of before it came online:
Mouahahah. By opposition to the francophile Weekly Standard and its heavily documented permanent attempts to discredit the french no matter what they do or say.
If you really think that US companies have stopped doing business with Iraq, you're seriously blinded, pal. Maybe next time you will explain that Rumsfeld did not meet Saddam in 1983 and did not come back enthusiastic, and that the US have nothing to do with the gas which was used by Saddam against the Kurds, while you're at it.
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