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| Europe |
| France helped Iraqis escape |
| 2003-05-06 |
| Oh oh -- you don't want Bill Gertz after you. Edited to just the main point. The French government secretly supplied fleeing Iraqi officials with passports in Syria that allowed them to escape to Europe, The Washington Times has learned. An unknown number of Iraqis who worked for Saddam Hussein's government were given passports by French officials in Syria, U.S. intelligence officials said. But wait, it gets worse. The passports are regarded as documents of the European Union, because of France's membership in the union, and have helped the Iraqis avoid capture, said officials familiar with intelligence reports. The French support, which was revealed through sensitive intelligence-gathering means, angered Pentagon, State Department and intelligence officials in Washington because it undermined the search for senior aides to Saddam, who fled Iraq in large numbers after the fall of Baghdad on April 9. "It made it very difficult to track these people," one official said. A second Bush administration official said, "It's like Raoul Wallenberg in reverse," a reference to the Swedish diplomat who supplied travel documents to help Jews escape Nazi Germany in World War II. "Now you have the French helping the bad guys escape from us." The surprise meter didn't twitch at all. The disappointment gauge, however, hit the orange alert setting. Asked about the passports, Nathalie Loiseau, a spokeswoman for the French Embassy, said French authorities have not issued any visas to officials of the former Iraqi regime since the beginning of the war in Iraq, either in Syria or elsewhere. "France formally denies this type of allegation, which is not only contrary to reality but is intended to discredit our nation," she said. "It is certainly time for rumors of this type — totally unfounded and a dishonor to those who spread them — to stop." Problem is, Natie, lotsa Americans find it increasingly hard to believe you. The French passports allow the wanted Iraqis to move freely among 12 EU countries that are part of the Schengen agreement on unrestricted travel. Britain, Denmark and Ireland are not part of the Schengen pact. The intelligence on the French passports came after reports indicated that a French company covertly sold military spare parts to Iraq in the weeks before the war. Other intelligence reports indicated that a French oil company was working with a Russian oil firm to conclude a deal with Saddam's government in the days before military action began March 19. The French government also denied U.S. intelligence indicating that a Chinese chemical company used French and Syrian brokers to circumvent U.N. sanctions in providing Iraq with chemicals used in making missile fuel. We already knew all of this. Regarding the French passports for fleeing Iraqis, Pentagon officials have expressed frustration that few of the most senior leaders identified on the list of top 55 officials of the Saddam regime have been captured. The capture yesterday of an Iraqi biological weapons scientist, Huda Salih Mahdi Ammash, brings to 19 the number of senior Iraqi leaders who have been caught. One has been reported killed. Only one of the captives is ranked in the top 10. So either they did or they didn't. This article isn't offering proof positive. But it wouldn't be out of character for the French to do something like this, and that's the real shame. |
| Posted by:Steve White |