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Chirac's Saddam Connection
By Thomas W. Murphy
French President Jacques Chirac's special relationship with Saddam Hussein goes back almost 30 years. As the French Prime Minister in 1974, Chirac was instrumental in boosting France's diplomatic and economic ties with oil-rich Iraq. Chirac called Saddam Hussein "a personal friend" after Chirac and Hussein finalized the agreement for the construction of a French-built nuclear reactor near Baghdad; the reactor that was later bombed by Israel.
Chirac's long-standing relationship with Saddam Hussein and France's vast financial interests with the current Iraqi Government goes a long way in explaining France's seemingly inexplicable passion to keep Saddam Hussein in power.
France has historically been Iraq's best friend in the West. The French-Iraqi connection started shortly after France pulled out of NATO in 1966.
Prior to the Arab-Israeli war of 1967, France was the chief supplier of military equipment to Israel. In fact, France helped Israel build its nuclear reactor at Dimona, supplied Israel with enriched uranium, and actively helped Israel develop nuclear weapons.
In the days leading up to the Arab-Israeli War, France abandoned Israel and threw its hat in with the Arabs nations. De Gaulle doubted the Israeli's could defeat the combined Arab nations and saw the coming war as an opportunity to extend French influence and cultivate relationships with the oil-rich Arab nations.
By the end of the 1970s France was second only to the Soviet Union as a supplier of both military and civilian equipment to the Iraqis. The trend continued throughout the 1980s. France strongly backed Iraq during its war with Iran. Unlike other western governments who gave minimal help to Iraq hoping to stave off an Iraqi defeat and maintain the status quo; France supplied Iraq with Mirage Fighters, Super Etendard aircraft with Exocet missiles, and sophisticated munitions.
The Gulf War of 1991 provided little more than a hiccup in French-Iraqi relations. By 1994, France was calling for a loosening of UN sanctions and along with Russia attempting to short-circuit UNSCOM at every step. France pushed to allow Iraq to sell more oil. When the U.S. and Britain demanded tough controls to ensure the increased oil revenues would not be used to buy arms, the French objected saying such controls would undermine Iraqi sovereignty. From 1997 on, France fought to get the UN sanctions lifted entirely.
Last year, under intense pressure from France and Russia, the UN loosened restrictions on high-tech equipment, enabling Iraq to obtain a broad range of equipment with potential military applications; ranging from agricultural sprayers that can be used to disperse chemical and biological weapons to neutron generators that can be used as crude nuclear triggers and are compatible with a known Iraqi design for a gun-implosion type nuclear device.
Hundreds of French firms do business with Iraq. France sold $1.5 billion worth of goods to Iraq last year under the oil-for-food program; the most of any nation. French giants Alcatel and Renault do a booming business in Iraq, and French oil firms hold contracts with Saddam Hussein's government estimated at over $60 billion for oil exploration and development; oil contracts that cannot be worked until UN sanctions are lifted.
In light of France's financial interests and longstanding ties to Saddam Hussein's Iraq, its hardly surprising that France opposes military action to depose Saddam Hussein. A new Iraqi government might not be inclined to honor oil contracts with Saddam's old buddies.
And then again, as one U.S. intelligence expert somewhat facetiously put it, "France will jump on board with the U.S. the minute their agents in Baghdad get done shredding all evidence of their illicit arms sales to Iraq."
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"Those who know nothing of Islam pretend that Islam counsels against war. Those who say this are witless." ~Ayatollah Khomeini |
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01-26-2005 06:46 PM
