Talk about Nerve... The French and Germans want the US to maintain 150,000 of our troops over there on "standby", apparenly at OUR EXPENSE, while the UN sends thousands of their own troops to support intensified inspections that may, or may not succeed.
I say... a day late and a dollar short.. Screw 'em... they had all winter long to do this. In fact, they've 12 years to do it.. And what makes them think Saddam is going to agree to a UN occupation of Iraq anymore than a US one? In fact, what gives THEM the right to occupy Iraq anymore than the US??
It's an act of desperation by the French/Germans. An act they have only made because the US is holding their feet to the fire and making them look like fools:
Franco-German Plan Floated to Avert Iraq War
Sat Feb 8,11:51 AM ET Add Top Stories - Reuters to My Yahoo!
By Emma Thomasson
MUNICH, Germany (Reuters) - Germany and France are working on a new plan to try to avert war in Iraq that would compel Baghdad to admit thousands of U.N. troops to enforce disarmament and tighter sanctions, a magazine said on Saturday.
A German government spokesman confirmed Berlin and Paris were working together to find a peaceful alternative to war with Iraq, but would not provide any details of the efforts.
Germany's leading news magazine Der Spiegel said the idea had originated in the office of Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and Berlin and Paris had been working on the details of the initiative in secret talks since the beginning of the year.
Asked about the joint proposals at a major security summit in the southern German city of Munich, German Defense Minister Peter Struck declined to comment, noting only that Schroeder planned to address the German parliament on Iraq on Thursday.
A French Foreign Ministry spokesman declined to comment on the report in Der Spiegel, but French diplomatic sources said: "We are discussing with Security Council members what additional measures could be introduced to bolster U.N. inspections."
French Defense Minister Michele Alliot-Marie told the Munich conference Paris believed inspections had proved more effective than the Gulf War (news - web sites) of 1991 in disarming Iraq, but did not rule out military action as a last resort to make Baghdad cooperate.
"That's why France has proposed reinforcing the means given to inspectors, to reinforce the number of inspectors," she said.
In an advance copy ahead of publication on Sunday, Der Spiegel said Berlin and Paris wanted to publish their proposal in the next few days before weapons inspectors in Iraq report back to the U.N. Security Council on Friday.
Schroeder, who has angered Washington with his opposition to any war with Iraq, would discuss the idea at the weekend with Russian President Vladimir Putin (news - web sites), Der Spiegel said. France would probably take over driving the initiative forward and use it as a basis for a new Security Council resolution proposal.
Initial reactions from Russia, China and European Union (news - web sites) president Greece were positive, the magazine said, while Pope John Paul (news - web sites) offered German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer support for the initiative at talks in the Vatican (news - web sites) on Friday.
Germany and France had not consulted Washington or its European allies in London, Madrid and Rome, the magazine said.
In what the magazine said was a foretaste of the plan, French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin proposed intensifying weapons inspections and offered French reconnaissance planes to support them this week after Secretary of State Colin Powell (news - web sites) presented new evidence of Baghdad's alleged weapons programs.
U.N. PROTECTORATE
Der Spiegel said the initiative, which it said had been dubbed "Project Mirage," included the following proposals:
-- the some 150,000 U.S. troops already deployed to the Gulf should stay in place to force Baghdad to cooperate and be ready to invade if it breaches the new proposed U.N. resolution
-- Iraqi President Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) would be forced to admit thousands of armed U.N. troops to oversee intensified weapons inspections in the whole country as well as full disarmament, creating a de facto "U.N. protectorate"
-- the number of weapons inspectors should be tripled from the current 100 operating in Iraq
story.news.yahoo.com
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That's like the French and Germans.. Doing things half-@ssed and making things even more complicated (like having a couple of thousand UN troops surrounded by 40,000 Repoblican Guards, effectively being held hostage by Iraq.
Hawk |
