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Now France May Join A U.S. Attack
Despite its highly publicized reluctance to align itself with U.S. and British war cries against Baghdad, the French government has concluded that the Iraqi declaration about its weaponry is badly inadequate and falls so far short of Security Council demands that France may soon have to support and join UN-mandated military action against Iraq, according to French government sources. Although France has said nothing publicly before the UN inspectors' report to the Security Council on Thursday, the sources said privately Wednesday that the Iraqi declaration's shortcomings amount to patent deception and have sharply increased the likelihood of French participation in a U.S.-led invasion. A French source with direct knowledge of government experts' conclusions about the Iraqi declaration said, "It is not accurate, not full, not comprehensive" - deliberately choosing adjectives specified in Security Council Resolution 1441 demanding complete, up-to-date disclosure of Iraq's armaments program. It is not clear whether the council's other adjective, "final," will be enforced. But in Paris, it seemed increasingly probable that the Iraqis have mishandled the declaration, a key element offered by the Security Council to Baghdad as "a final opportunity to comply with its disarmament obligations."The Iraqis did such a bad job of lying even the French can't swallow it, and that says a lot! Without wanting to publicly prejudge the UN inspectors' conclusions, a French official said that "we have the same verdict as the Americans" on the contents of the Iraqi response. Another source in Paris concurred that this view summed up the French conclusions after experts and officials had combed through the thousands of pages of documentation about Iraq's missiles and warheads handed over 10 days ago. Already, officials in Paris acknowledged privately Wednesday that the extent of Iraqi omissions in the declaration shows that Iraq has sought to mislead the Security Council, thus opening the way to accusations of a "material breach" of Iraqi obligations. "The Iraqi accounting was supposed to allay international suspicions, but instead it seems to provide more evidence that Baghdad may actually have been pursuing weapons programs all along," according to a diplomat from a European country with which Paris is seeking policy coordination. Well-informed French sources said Wednesday that Iraqi disclosures were riddled with contradictions, omissions on outstanding issues, and crucial ambiguities and apparent falsehoods about armaments being developed in Iraq. Publicly, officials in Paris decline to disclose anything about the conclusions reached by French government experts, insisting that it is up to the UN inspectors and not individual Security Council member states to offer an initial evaluation of the Iraqi declaration. That situation will be clarified Thursday at the Security Council meeting in New York that will bring out the views of the chief inspectors, Hans Blix and Mohammed ElBaradei. Council members, including the United States and France, will also formally present their positions on the declaration and what should happen next. The French view will be influential with other nations, including the 15 members of the Security Council, because Paris has in the past battled against hard-line U.S. calls for action against the government of Saddam Hussein. Now France seems bound to assert that Baghdad is failing to cooperate with the Security Council. The bottom line, according to someone familiar with policymakers' thinking, is that the declaration "doesn't answer the question that the Security Council put forward in its resolution" demanding proof of Iraqi disarmament. If the Iraqi noncompliance proves to be as blatant as the French sources suggested, Paris may be willing to forgo a second Security Council resolution and join the United States in saying that the existing resolution is sufficient to provide a basis for UN-mandated military action against Iraq. The current resolution stipulates that Iraq has to commit a double fault - deception and obstruction - before it will be declared in material breach. But the two conditions could quickly coalesce if UN inspectors are denied a prompt reckoning by the Iraqis of the discrepancies in their declaration. A European diplomat said, "When the Bush administration decided to run the risk of seeking a Security Council resolution that met French requirements, it got the advantage of effectively locking France into war against Iraq if the resolution encountered Iraqi defiance." OK, France, you asked for us to play the game by your rules. Now what? So far, officials said, Paris has had mixed signals from Washington about how fast the Bush administration expects to proceed toward an attack. "But we don't think that they are going to wait around for weeks or more," a French source said, explaining that the case against Iraq now seemed so strong that the Bush administration's hard-liners can "go on the war path." Conceivably, Baghdad could still perform a last-minute turnaround, admitting to extensive official deception in the past and vowing major immediate concessions to end its secret arms programs to UN satisfaction. But French officials seemed Wednesday to agree with Washington that Baghdad seemed to signal defiance by its glaring failure to make a credible case in its declaration. The French experts' conclusion was that the 13,000-page Iraqi text raised alarming signals in almost every domain where it was supposed to provide explanations. The explanation is right in front of your eyes, Saddam wants his toys and he doesn't care about your precious little U.N. resolution. Now, it's clobbering time! Posted by: Steve 2002-12-19 |
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