| Submit your comments on this article |
| Iraq |
| French General: Iraq Mission Not Planned |
| 2003-07-13 |
| France could spare some 5,000 soldiers for an operation in Iraq but has received no orders to prepare for such a mission, the chief of the country’s armed forces suggested in an interview made available Saturday. Gen. Henri Bentegeat was referring Washington’s request for soldiers to help stabilize Iraq. U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said last week that the United States ``would be happy to have troops from a wide variety of countries, including France.’’ Rummy had chest pains that day, too. France already has 15,000 troops deployed in operations outside France, from the Balkans, to Afghanistan to Africa, Bentegeat said in an interview published in the Sunday paper Le Journal du Dimanche. French military planners foresee about 20,000 soldiers for external missions, he said, indicating 5,000 troops are hypothetically available for a mission in Iraq. But France has made clear it would send soldiers to Iraq only under a U.N. mandate, a position Bentegeat reiterated in the interview. Stuff it, then. ``I am waiting for the chief of state (President Jacques Chirac) to give me a mission to study an eventual deployment in Iraq,’’ the general added. ``For the moment, it is not on the agenda.’’ Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin spelled out the French position in a newspaper interview published Thursday. An eventual French role ``could only be envisaged within the framework of a United Nations peacekeeping force,’’ under a specific mandate from the U.N. Security Council, de Villepin told Le Figaro. ``For us, it would suffice that the political transition in Iraq is placed under the responsibility of the United Nations,’’ the foreign minister said. "Plus we would expect the Americans to apologize profusely to us. And start buying our wine again." France, joined by Germany and Russia, led the effort to avoid the U.S.-led war in Iraq, where the United States currently has about 150,000 troops. Bentegeat said that despite the diplomatic fallout between Washington and Paris, there has never been tension on the military front. ``Our relations remain excellent,’’ he told Le Journal du Dimanche. "Other than the Air Show cancellations and the advanced air force training class cancellations, our relations couldn’t be better!" He said French special forces would be sent to Afghanistan ``in the coming days’’ on a ``very confidential mission’’ surrounding the fight against the al-Qaida terror network and the Taliban. Those forces, he said, ``will be placed directly under operational American control and will remain under my operational command.’’ So don’t send the 5,000 to Iraq. Send them to Liberia or some other hell-hole, and make the UN happy. |
| Posted by:Steve White |
| #4 Thanks for the info, mon general, but we already kinda knew that. And it wasn't a big surprise. |
| Posted by: tu3031 2003-7-13 11:19:39 AM |
| #3 French SF in Afghanistan? Brilliant! Who else could train the last remnants of Al-Qaeda and the Taliban to surrender! |
| Posted by: Ned 2003-7-13 9:48:18 AM |
| #2 "I'm sooo confused" How can French troops be under"operational American control" and be under Gen. Henri Bentegeat's operational command? Guess this means French troops don't have to follow the American comander's orders. Reminds me of Somalia,when 10th Mountain and the Delta boys got into trouble it took hours of screwing arround to get the Pak's to do anything to help. |
| Posted by: raptor 2003-7-13 7:50:19 AM |
#1 So don’t send the 5,000 to Iraq. Send them to Liberia or some other hell-hole, and make the UN happy. "I'd rather have a German division in front of me, The last thing our men and women need is to have to watch out for the Frenchmen behind them. |
| Posted by: Celissa 2003-7-13 6:45:48 AM |