Mocking la perfide Albion has been a national pastime in France for centuries, but the documents that are now being disinterred from the smouldering embers of Saddam Hussein's regime suggest that perfidy would be rather a polite word for the conduct of Jacques Chirac and the French government towards their allies.
Elsewhere in today's Telegraph, Alex Spillius reports that papers found in the Iraqi foreign ministry show how, as recently as three years ago, French diplomats from the Quai d'Orsay were colluding with agents from IRIS (the Iraqi Intelligence Service, better known as the Mukhabarat) to frustrate efforts by the Iraqi opposition and the British-based human rights group Indict to highlight atrocities in Iraq at a conference in Paris.
Other documents include a warm thank-you letter from Saddam to M Chirac in response to the French president's campaign to end UN sanctions, a deal between Peugeot and Baghdad, and mysterious payments from IRIS to beneficiaries in France.
The picture that emerges is not a pretty one. Material from the same Iraqi ministry published elsewhere suggests that French diplomats were keeping Baghdad informed about Bush-Chirac summits and other talks between Washington and Paris. This entente cordiale with the Ba'athist dictatorship provides a new context in which to consider M Chirac's refusal to countenance a Security Council resolution to authorise military action "under any circumstances". At the time, this was seen as a typically Gaullist "Non!", a rhetorical gesture of defiance to the Anglo-American coalition. It appears that M Chirac was also trying to preserve a Franco-Iraqi nexus that now looks quite sinister.
The significance of these intimate links with Saddam will not be lost on America. The Bush Administration's anger with the French was publicly reiterated last week by the Secretary of State, Colin Powell, and in Washington high-level meetings are being held to finalise punitive measures. In Paris, the response so far has vacillated between nervous appeasement and brazen provocation.
M Chirac rang the White House to propose a plan, apparently intended to be conciliatory, to establish a role for Nato in Iraq. However, one of the measures being considered in Washington is to downgrade the French role at Nato. Moreover, just as M Chirac was trying to ingratiate himself, his foreign minister, Dominique de Villepin, was making a surprise visit to another member of the "axis of evil", Iran, which had just been warned by Washington not to interfere in Iraq.
Tony Blair, who has even more reason than George Bush to feel double-crossed by the French government over Iraq, should be in no hurry to forgive, let alone to forget.
yea, that's right, rumsfeld shaking hands with saddam.
and now what? rumsfeld has forgotten about that mistake and the coalition has taken saddam out.
and what has YOUR COUNTRY DONE? except go behind america's back and spill everything they heard to the regime, and then come out against the war because they don't want iraqi civilians dying?
i know the american government has problems, but the french gov. just takes the cake.
make up your mind french, you're constantly spitting out hypocrisy. you say america is ruled by fanatics, then you say you had a choice for a facist gov. you say america's system is corrupt and jacque was your only choice. first you say you don't like him, then he's not a worm.
well, sorry, but based on the PROOF about what your government has been up to...haha i'll leave you with that thought...
Gesh! PRO-PEACE people make me laugh. You guys just don't get it. Sorry that you don't, and I am sorry for *bashing you for you ignorance. OR maybe.....I'm not.
Hey French Fries...what of this...and in case you want to read the rest...look on search4 truth's new thread..The entire article is there!!! But here is a sneak peek!!!!
Chirac's latest ploy stinks of blatant hypocrisy
JACQUES CHIRAC'S scheme to win French companies fat contracts in reconstructing Iraq has run into realpolitik: anti-U.S. actions have consequences.
After a decade of opposing any pressure on Saddam to obey U.N. resolutions, France reversed itself after its favorite dictator was brought down. Chirac and his new ally, Vladimir Putin, let it be known they would refuse to lift U.N. sanctions on the sale of Iraqi oil.
Last week's Chirac-Putin ultimatum: If we don't get French-Russian contracts to rebuild Iraq, then we won't let Iraq sell its oil. You suffer the casualties; we get the contracts.
France and Russia also want to keep under U.N. control the currently permitted sale of Iraqi oil, ostensibly to buy food and medicine for a majority of Iraqis. That's because the oil-for-food bureaucracy headed by Benon Sevan let Saddam steer billions in banking and commercial business to Paris, Moscow and Damascus.
Go....go now and read the rest...tell me what you think of your human worm now that he has changed his hypocritical tune so easily.
You guys just don't get it. Sorry that you don't, and I am sorry for *bashing you for you ignorance. OR maybe.....I'm not.