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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group

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To: carranza2 who wrote (76403)	2/21/2003 6:46:39 PM
From: Elsewhere	Read Replies (1) of 281500

Wish I spoke German. zdf.de No prob - my translation: Old intimacies between Paris and Baghdad France's position towards Iraq is dubious - old friendships prevent a hard course Jacques Chirac is probably embarrassed by the 1976 photograph - and not because of the old-fashioned glasses. But Chirac now emphasizes that he hasn't met Saddam since. Also the USA once supported the Iraq leader. But they never came as close to Iraq as France. No wonder that old doubts reappear now that France is putting on the breaks in the UN Security Council these days and is delaying the war plans of US president George Bush by insisting on a consensus between the most important UNSC members. Profitable friendship between men Today's president Chirac was the first French Prime Minister to visit Iraq in 1974. Soon after that he invited Saddam Hussein to a counter visit in Paris and flattered him. For the French economy this friendship was invaluable. Saddam Hussein brought orders for the defense industry and was able to return with purchase promises for fighter jets and a nuclear power plant. Many years later many suspicious people don't think it is a coincidence that some of Chirac's lasting friends are managers of the defense industry. His de Gaulle party RPR is thought to have benefited from the good connections to Saddam Hussein. Yet it is considered to be unlikely that Chirac personally profited from the good ties between Paris and Baghdad. In 1990 he was too strongly in favor of an international intervention to stop the occupation of Kuwait. Many French are fascinated by Saddam Hussein Many French are fascinated by Saddam Hussein: at the beginning of the Gulf War the socialist President François Mitterrand was indetermined and understanding towards Saddam. The right extremist Jean-Marie Le Pen is in line with the anti-semite in Baghdad. Le Pen's wife is heading a pro-Iraq aid organization. The RPR politician Roselyne Bachelot, speaker of Chirac's re-election campaign and now environment minister, founded a French-Iraqi friendship group. France is the only Western state to still maintain cultural and research institutions in Baghdad. In the new power struggle with Iraq Chirac and his conservative government have juxtaposed a graded diplomatic crisis model to the hard US position. For its stance France seems to be able to gather a majority of the security council. Counter position to US dominance This is not only motivated by the hope that Paris might win back lost markets for its defense industry and the access to oil fields in Iraq. In the background Paris is additionally attempting to assemble a counterweight to the US hegemony. A final important reason: Jean-Pierre Chevènement deplores that the USA has moved so quickly from bin Laden to Saddam Hussein. For the leader of al Qaeda and the Iraqi president represent opposite tendencies: islamism on the one side and Arab nationalism on the other one. This image of Saddam Hussein is still popular in France. But nobody in Paris wants Saddam to become too powerful. The UNO is supposed to set the rules, that is the prevailing opinion - and not Bush's team according to its own ideas. By Reinolf Reis, AFP

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