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| Rice Repeats U.S. Complaints About France |
| 2003-05-31 |
| In an administration with Rice, W, Cheney, and Rumsfeld, you never need to ask for straight talk heh heh PARIS - U.S. National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice repeated Washington's complaints against France in an interview on Saturday only hours before the two countries' leaders were due for their first meeting since the Iraq war. Rice's remarks, in an interview with the daily Le Monde, appeared on Paris newsstands as President Jacques Chirac told journalists in St Petersburg that French-U.S. relations were good and he looked forward to meeting President Bush. Ouch, nice timing! Chirac was a major thorn in Bush's side during preparations for the Iraq war earlier this year, threatening to veto any United Nations Security Council resolution backing military action. The two were due to meet briefly at St Petersburg's anniversary festivities on Saturday and attend this year's Group of Eight summit in Evian, France, from Sunday. "There were times that it appeared that American power was seen to be more dangerous than, perhaps, Saddam Hussein. I'll just put it very bluntly," Rice said, according to an English- language transcript of the interview. thank you for the clarity "We simply didn't understand it." Rice complained that France had not only criticized the war but actively tried to rally other countries to provide "checks and balances" against the United States. "What was to be checked?" she asked. "Perhaps Americans couldn't understand why it was not considered a worthy cause to liberate Iraq... there is a lot of consternation about the way that this was posed (by Paris)." Without identifying Chirac by name, Rice criticized his angry dressing down of eastern European countries that sided with the United States before the U.S.-led war: "We couldn't quite understand why the East Europeans were told to behave themselves, and that they shouldn't somehow choose to support the United States, it would somehow undermine their European identity. We just couldn't understand it." Rice also lashed out at France's post-Iraq diplomacy, when asked about Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin's meeting last week with Palestinian President Yasser Arafat. "I do not understand the continuing interest in Arafat in this regard," she said. "The fact is that the Palestinian people need leadership that is committed to fighting terrorism. That has never been Arafat." Never was about Arafat, just De Villepin trying to stick his finger in our eye, so what if it cost Israeli and Paleo lives Bush, who began his European tour with a thank-you visit to Poland, plans to leave the Group of Eight summit one day early -- on Monday -- to attend meetings with Arab leaders in Egypt and the Israeli and Palestinian prime ministers in Jordan. |
| Posted by:Frank G |