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| Why do you think France vowed to veto any resolution using war in Iraq? |
| Humanitarian reasons |
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26% |
[ 4 ] |
| Fear of U.S. domination in the world |
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20% |
[ 3 ] |
| Resentment of the U.S. |
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6% |
[ 1 ] |
| Didn't want to lose illegal billion-dollar oil contracts with Iraq |
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13% |
[ 2 ] |
| Affraid world would find evidence that they have been supplying nuclear reactors and weapons-grade plutonium to Iraq since the 1970's |
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33% |
[ 5 ] |
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| Total Votes : 15 |
Dov
Guards Lieutenant
Joined: 13 Mar 2003
Posts: 164
Location: USA |
| French reasons for opposing war in Iraq |
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I saw the poll on the U.S.'s reasons for war, so I thought it only fair to look at the other end of the spectrum. This could be not only for France but also for Russia, China, and Germany, but all the proof I've found seems to implicate France as having illegitemate reasons more than any other country. |
Mon Mar 24, 2003 2:41 am |
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Scrivener
Noble Knight
Joined: 20 Jun 2002
Posts: 223
Location: Australia |
I'm sure economic reasons play a big part.
The French supplied nuclear technology and Mirage fighters to Iraq, and the Germans provided the biological weapon technology used against the Kurds. However, the US was completely up-to-date with what was going on and didn't object. (Australia only provides wheat! I was reading in the paper the other day about a journalist who was dragged onto the carpet by the Australia ambassador for writing critical articles about Saddam - he was "jeapordizing our wheat exports".)
Here is a summary of a documentary showing here:
THE CUTTING EDGE: SADDAM'S FRIENDS
Produced in 2003, SADDAM'S FRIENDS showing on SBS Television on Tuesday, March 25 at 8.30pm, looks at how Western powers, including America, France and Germany, armed Saddam Hussein.
In 1974 the French government, then led by Prime Minister Jacques Chirac, sold Iraq a nuclear reactor in return for lucrative deals including cheap oil. International sceptics asked why an oil rich country would need nuclear power but the French government insisted the reactor would be monitored and would not pose a military threat.
In 1979 Saddam Hussein ordered Iraqs physicists to redirect their research from peaceful to military applications. One of them, Dr Hussein Sharistani, refused and was tortured and imprisoned in solitary confinement for ten years. In 1981 Israel bombed the plant but the Iran-Iraq war (1980-88) saw an escalation of military support for secular Iraq against fundamentalist Iran. French supplied nuclear fuel, Germany sold Iraq the means of producing chemical and bacteriological weapons and, after a visit by Donald Rumsfeld (now Secretary of Defence), America sold Hussein sophisticated Harpoon missiles. It is also alleged that America sent live viruses, including anthrax, to Iraqi military units.
Former CIA director Gordon Oehler explains how between 1987 and 1989 German companies sold Iraq all the material it needed for another nuclear plant capable of producing nuclear weapons. The program claims that the German government authorised the sale. Kenneth Timmerman, author of "The Death Lobby", says that it was also German technology which enabled the creation of the toxic chemical gases Hussein dropped on the Kurdish village of Halabja in 1988, killing 5,000 people. Mirage fighter jets from France were used for the mission. Former Defence Minister Jean Pierre Chevenement says Halabja "only took on importance in the 1990s. At the time no one said anything yet the Americans knew all about it."
At the end of the Iran-Iraq war Timmerman claims that Iraq owed the French the equivalent of 6 billion euros. With the end of the conflict Hussein concentrated on repatriating thousands of Arab scientists and engineers from all over the world and personally supervised their integration into the Iraqi system.
Iraqi nuclear physicist Dr Khidhir Hamza fled Iraq in 1994. He claims that at that time there were 12 000 people involved in researching nuclear weaponry.
SADDAM'S FRIENDS is a French production. |
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Mon Mar 24, 2003 3:00 am |
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Val
Risen From Ashes
Joined: 18 Feb 2002
Posts: 14724
Location: Utah, USA |
I think most regular civilians opposed to the war don't want war simply because they don't like war or they don't see it as justified or they have chosen the path of pacifism.
Governments tend to be more concerned with polling data and having egg on their face over an embarrassing incident.
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Mon Mar 24, 2003 5:32 am |
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Dov
Guards Lieutenant
Joined: 13 Mar 2003
Posts: 164
Location: USA |
quote:
I think most regular civilians opposed to the war don't want war simply because they don't like war or they don't see it as justified or they have chosen the path of pacifism.
Agreed. I think this is probably the reason why the people of France oppose the war, but its government, and specifically Jacque Chirac, seems to be trying to cover something up. |
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Mon Mar 24, 2003 5:48 am |
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XeroX
The MasterCopy
Joined: 13 Dec 2001
Posts: 7125
Location: The Netherlands |
France must be afriad to lose money and people if the go to war.
My country is just weird. The goverment supports the US in poletics but doesn't send men to fight. But we got or rockets defending Turkey and or F16's stay in Saoedi Arabie longer. That way the US doesn't have to send more of thier airforce their, clearing them for Iraq. Strange isn't it.
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Mon Mar 24, 2003 12:55 pm |
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Hyrrix
Fourty-two
Joined: 20 Jan 2003
Posts: 282
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What do you mean, Dov? The first article doesn't say anything about Chirac's guilt as far as I can see, except that he tries to change Iraq without a sudden regime change. Doubtful that will work, but does that make him guilty?
As for the other article... well, I guess that's open for discussion. We can't predict the future, and only future will tell what the best solution is for this problem.
The reason why France opposes, is probably rather complex. First of all, there's the electoral (is that the right word?) reason. The vast majority of the people in Western-Europe are against the war, for the reasons Val gave. Which is the same reason as in Belgium btw... political parties making it a race for who is most against the war.
Then of course economics play a role. But they do everywhere. 
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Vault Network Editor |
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Mon Mar 24, 2003 5:46 pm |
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Dov
Guards Lieutenant
Joined: 13 Mar 2003
Posts: 164
Location: USA |
This is what I mean, Hyrrix. Read the whole article.
quote:
Chirac is the only Western leader to have a personal knowledge of the Iraqi president.
The two first met in 1975, when Chirac was prime minister for the first time, and almost instantly warmed up to one another.
Chirac became the first French leader to make an official visit to Baghdad that year, and to deepen his ties with Saddam who was vice president and "strongman" at the time.
Saddam showed his appreciation by approving a deal under which Iraq committed to granting French oil companies a number of privileges plus a 23 percent share of Iraqi oil.
Chirac repaid the favor by approving the construction of Iraq's first nuclear-power center, Tammuz, near Baghdad. The project, which subsequently emerged as the core of Iraq's efforts to develop nuclear weapons, was destroyed in an Israeli air raid in September 1980.
In 1976 Saddam paid an official visit to France, his first and last to any Western country, and was received by Chirac as a head of state.
It was not until 1991 that Chirac broke contacts with Saddam as a result of Iraq's invasion of Kuwait.
The friendship forged between the two men proved profitable for both sides. France sold an estimated $20 billion worth of weapons, including Mirage fighters, to Iraq, and emerged as Iraq's biggest trading partner, in a wide-range of civilian goods and services, after Russia. In exchange, Iraq focused on France as its largest oil market in Europe.
During five of his seven-year first term as president, Chirac was unable to pursue an Iraq policy of his own because he had to contend with a Socialist-Communist cabinet headed by his then political rival Lionel Jospin.
Since last April, however, Chirac, with his supporters in control of both the parliament and the cabinet, has assumed personal charge of the Iraqi issue by setting up a special "policy cell" within the Elysee Palace.
He's been helping them create a nuclear program since the 1970's. |
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Mon Mar 24, 2003 6:54 pm |
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Hyrrix
Fourty-two
Joined: 20 Jan 2003
Posts: 282
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Hmm yes... must have read over it, my apologies. Why, o why, is the main source of energy for humanity also its greatest danger. Same problem in North-Korea. Terrible lack of power there. The US (or UN? I can't remember) and North-Korea had a deal about not building Nuclear Power Plants. In return, the international community would build water-power plants, among other means of getting more electric power into the country. A few years back, the projects were cut off and as a result there's a total lack of electricity in the region. That is one of the reasons why it has tried to re-start its power plants. But you never know for certain of course.
quote:
Chirac is the only Western leader to have a personal knowledge of the Iraqi president.
If I'm not mistaken, that is not completely correct. Dick Cheney also met Saddam Hoessein and did business with him.
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Vault Network Editor |
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Mon Mar 24, 2003 7:44 pm |
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Dov
Guards Lieutenant
Joined: 13 Mar 2003
Posts: 164
Location: USA |
quote:
Why, o why, is the main source of energy for humanity also its greatest danger. Same problem in North-Korea.
Agreed, I and I feel that we will have to deal with them accordingly. Nice that we agree on something for once  . |
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Mon Mar 24, 2003 8:21 pm |
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Hyrrix
Fourty-two
Joined: 20 Jan 2003
Posts: 282
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I don't think we disagree in as many ways as you might think, Dov. I believe that our goals and intentions are the same, but our methods (or at least what we believe that the best methods are) may vary.
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Vault Network Editor |
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Mon Mar 24, 2003 8:34 pm |
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MoonDragon
High Emperor
Joined: 25 May 2002
Posts: 1254
Location: Waterloo, Canada |
Before you decide to bash someone, you should get your facts straight or you end up looking like a fool. Don't know what I mean? Well, let's examine your poll question:
quote:
Why do you think France vowed to veto any resolution using war in Iraq?
First, France never vowed to anything (as a simple rule of any politician is not to firmly commit yourself to anything you can't get out of).
Second, France never said anything about veto. Don't believe me? Find one instance of one French official diplomat mentioning how France will use its veto. Threatening that you won't let some resolution pass in UN security council may or may not entail veto. It certainly does not mean it will be a veto.
Third, France never talked about any resolution, but instead only about specific ones that would automatically authorize US to attack Iraq at their convenience. All that they were asking for, is couple of more months that the weapons inspectors said will take them to fully disarm Iraq.
Additionally, providing one-sided "facts" does not do you justice. Trying to paint France as the evil purveyor of WMD to an even more evil regime, while the ever vigilant US is now liberating Iraqi people of themselves, only provokes replies that point out how it was both French and US pharmaceutical companies that provided germs for Iraqi weapons research. It also promts pointing out how it was the US that incited Kurds to rebel against Saddam and then it was US who vetoed resolutions by, and lobbied the UN security council that attempted to put measures in place to stop Saddam from gassing the combatants that threatened his power. It was also US government (read: CIA) that thought Saddam regime how to effectively manifacture and deliver WMDs, as they used his war against Iran (sponsored by USSR, at the time) to test such weapons. It was, again, US who blocked any UN security council measures to curb Saddam's use of such weapons. This is how US government knows today what Saddam knows.
Now, I'm not saying that French government has clean hands. As I pointed out above, both French and US companies were involved. But the picture certainly isn't one-sided. So please stop your silly propaganda.
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Mon Mar 24, 2003 11:01 pm |
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Dhruin
Stranger In A Strange Land
Joined: 20 May 2002
Posts: 1825
Location: Sydney, Australia |
quote:
Originally posted by MoonDragon
It also promts pointing out how it was the US that incited Kurds to rebel against Saddam and then it was US who vetoed resolutions by, and lobbied the UN security council that attempted to put measures in place to stop Saddam from gassing the combatants that threatened his power.
Can you provide a source on this? I've searched the UN Security Council documents and I can't find anything relevant. |
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Tue Mar 25, 2003 6:33 am |
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NidPuterGuy
Fearless Paladin
Joined: 08 Jan 2003
Posts: 237
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Could it be that the French just don't like the wool being pulled over there heads like most of the other countries and about 30% of the US? Somehow the minority 70% of Americans vs the majority of people on the planet somehow are convinced that they are absolutely correct. |
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Tue Mar 25, 2003 7:44 am |
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