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Rice Says France, Germany Took NATO âHostageâ
Ahhh yes, the Reuters sneer quotes are backU.S. national security adviser Condoleezza Rice disparaged France for taking NATO "hostage" over Iraq and for threatening smaller countries with reprisals if they backed Washington's war to oust Saddam Hussein. "Nobody should take NATO hostage," Rice said in an interview with four Spanish newspapers published on Wednesday. We don't want to have to kill the hostage, but .... "It was very unsettling that Germany and France tried to prevent NATO from reinforcing the security of Turkey. There were many unsettling things in that process," she told Spanish national newspapers El Pais, El Mundo, ABC and La Vanguardia. While saying that France and Germany would remain U.S. allies, Rice also said France did more to divide Europe over Iraq than did the United States. "The United States did not divide the Europeans...It wasn't us that threatened smaller countries with reprisals nor tried to shut up the countries of Eastern Europe," Rice said in reference to France. Heh heh, remember that New Europe? In the run-up to the war in Iraq, France actively lobbied smaller countries on the U.N. Security Council to reject a resolution that would have approved the use of force. French President Jacques Chirac also took to task future members of the European Union from Eastern Europe for backing the United States on Iraq when they could have remained silent. In what was seen as the biggest crisis within NATO for decades, France and Germany delayed a military aid package for Turkey that was meant to bolster its defenses before the war in Iraq. Just reminding everyone before the attempts at rapprochement and revisions to history begin Posted by: Frank G 2003-05-07 |
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