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Ned
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of Aptos, CA
Oct 1999
time: 21:26
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Vile hypocrisy of 'Chiraq'
LABOUR stalwart and ex-Cabinet enforcer Dr JACK CUNNINGHAM today rips into the vile hypocrisy of French President Jacques Chirac’s opposition to a war against Iraq.
Dr Cunningham, a former minister and Shadow Foreign Secretary, writing exclusively for The Sun and pictured right, exposes the squalid motives behind Chirac’s pledge to sabotage UN moves to approve the use of force to disarm Saddam Hussein.
IN recent weeks, Tony Blair has been working night and day to unite the world community on a second UN resolution on Iraq.
He has been ready to compromise, to listen to others and to offer Saddam a peaceful way out.
But this week, in the middle of these delicate and difficult negotiations, French President Jacques Chirac chose to intervene to sabotage his efforts.
By vowing to wield the French veto — “whatever the circumstance” and whatever the content of the second resolution — he set out deliberately to destroy the last chance for the international community to unite on disarming Saddam Hussein.
President Chirac likes to pretend his stance is to do with peace, the greater good of humanity and the security of the world.
But it’s nothing to do with peace. It’s about cynically protecting French business in Iraq.
It’s about French jealousy of the US and the UK — and President Chirac’s desperation to protect one of his long-time cronies.
The veto promise has finally exposed the nauseating hypocrisy of the French position.
Even if Saddam dropped chemical bombs again on his own civilians or fired banned missiles at his neighbours, we now know the Iraqi dictator can rely on the French president to try his best to block efforts by the international community to take action.
And the so-called Martini veto — to be used anytime, anywhere on anything — has finally highlighted Chirac’s absolute determination to protect the Iraqi dictator, no matter what.
Chirac and Saddam go back 30 years.
The French leader has been nicknamed Chiraq in the past by the French press for his closeness to the Iraqi dictator.
It was as Chirac’s private guest that Saddam made his only official trip to the West.
Pictures of the two leaders together — and the praise Chirac lavished on his guest — are parts of his history that the French president is keen to keep hidden.
So determined was Chirac to help Saddam that he sold him a nuclear reactor even though, in a country awash with oil, he must have known it would be used to develop nuclear weapons rather than for generating power.
It took a bombing raid by the Israeli air force in 1981 to stop the terrifying prospect of Saddam having a nuclear bomb in his arsenal.
But it’s not just nuclear weapons which France helped Saddam develop.
By 1982, Iraq accounted for 40 per cent of all France’s arms sales. Mirage fighters, Exocet missiles and armoured vehicles were all on the shopping list.
Weapons used to attack his neighbours, terrorise his own people — and which US and UK forces will have to face if military action is necessary.
The billions of pounds owed to the French for these weapons is why they only reluctantly joined the rest of the world in the military operation to liberate Kuwait after Iraq invaded.
And these debts and continuing business links are why the French have done everything they can for 12 years to water down sanctions and prevent any international action which might weaken Saddam’s position.
So while the French may now claim to want to give the UN weapons inspectors more time, they forget they abstained when it came to setting up the tougher inspection regime in 1999.
They may say they respect the United Nations but forget it was a French charter flight carrying government ministers and business leaders which broke the UN flight ban the following year.
French companies are Saddam’s biggest trading partners in the West and have won hugely lucrative deals to exploit Iraqi oil — contracts they fear they will lose if Saddam is ousted.
This is why Chirac is fighting so hard to protect Saddam, even if the consequence is more terror and starvation for the Iraqi people, an increased threat to the wider world and the loss of UN authority.
We can’t ignore the fact that he may also be doing it for fear of what might come out over his personal links with Saddam if people who know what went on can finally speak freely in Iraq.
And that’s something which those now fooled by Chirac’s claim to be acting for peace might like to think about long and hard in the coming days.
And why I will be supporting Tony Blair as he carries on his tireless efforts to disarm Saddam as the UN vowed to do.
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yavoon
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all you coddled people are woefully unaware of the scale we are talking about. yah the bush is religious and he is doing things somewhat in accordance w/ that. but to compare bush's religious beliefs w/ the religious fundamentalism of the middle east is just friggin naive.
and to boris, I find it no shock that iraq claimed the oil fields. as I don't find it any shock that the second the british/spanish/french/dutch landed on america they claimed ungodly tracks of territory. it would honestly seem like the thing to do.
I just don't believe that hussein was that stupid to think we would let him control kuwait. I mean how long did it take us after he invaded for us to be there w/ military? its not like it was even a decision on our part.
yet against all logic, all previous policy and all reason. u say that the embassador and hussein had this lil talk where its like "yah u can invade and occupy kuwait cuz they're stealing some of ur oil, thats cool"
its just...well a very bad word, thats wut it isl.
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yavoon
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our general middle east policy is keep the gov'ts as friendly to us as possible and dont let anyone conquer anyone else.
I think ur basically spouting crap. I refuse to believe saddam was that stupid. like we're just going to let dictators run around invading ppl for theft of oil. you have to be absolutely kidding me.
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yavoon
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cuz we supported him to stalemate iran. my point is he wasn't given assurances that he could occupy kuwait.
its possible that someone told him he could destroy the oil fields in northern kuwait. but I doubt that too.
u repeat ur crap just as much as me. so dont point fingers.
its not that we liked saddam nemore than we liked the freedom fighters in afghanistan. we were just picking sides of convenience, its not like "we had saddams back." so I don't think he was so stupid that when it becomes abhorently against our interests to let him do something that we'll let it slide just cuz u know, we friends dawg.
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14-03-2003 08:27
exactly.
You may as well expect me to start posting articles from Workers World.
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