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Chirac questions US-led Iraq war
French President Jacques Chirac says he is "not at all sure" the world has become safer with the removal from power of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein. In a BBC interview Mr Chirac suggests the situation in Iraq has helped to prompt an increase in terrorism.
Strange, I haven't noticed an increase in terrorism in the U.S., have you?
The interview, to be aired on BBC Two's Newsnight programme on Wednesday, comes ahead of his visit to the UK this week.

President Chirac also maintains that any intervention in Iraq should have been through the United Nations. "To a certain extent Saddam Hussein's departure was a positive thing, " Mr Chirac says when asked if the world is safer now, as US President George W Bush has repeatedly stated. "But it also provoked reactions, such as the mobilisation in a number of countries, of men and women of Islam, which has made the world more dangerous to French business interests," Mr Chirac says. "There's no doubt that there has been an increase in terrorism and one of the origins of that has been the situation in Iraq. I'm not at all sure that one can say that the world is safer."

He also signals that he believes Britain's support for the US-led war has brought few dividends. In an earlier interview with British journalists, Mr Chirac said Prime Minister Tony Blair had received nothing in return for backing the Bush administration. "I'm not sure it is in the nature of our American friends at the moment to return favours systematically," he said. "I am not sure, with America as it is these days, that it would be easy for someone, even the British, to be an honest broker."
Does the French language have a word for 'honest', or does Chirac have to switch to English?

Posted by: tipper 2004-11-17
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=49041