A littlle French bashing from the New Statesman? Oui:
The Elysee Palace's routine disregard of its clients' human rights records makes President Jacques Chirac's new status as hero of the left and guardian of Europe's conscience on Iraq all the more ironic. This is the same Jacques Chirac who, as French premier in the 1970s, sold Saddam Hussein two nuclear power plants ("This deal with France is the very first concrete step towards production of the Arab atomic bomb," gushed Saddam). Chirac later declared himself "truly fascinated by Saddam Hussein since 1974". France went on to sell the Ba'athist regime $1.5bn of weapons.In the 1990s, the French oil giant TotalFinaElf spent six years developing the Majnoon and Bin Umar oilfields, representing 25 per cent of Iraq's oil reserves. Alcatel won contracts worth $75m, its main task being to upgrade Baghdad's phone system; Renault sold Iraq $75m worth of farming equipment; and, once the trade embargo was partially lifted, France controlled 25 per cent of Iraq's imports. It is estimated that, in 2001 alone, 60 French firms did $1.5bn in trade under the now-suspect oil-for-food programme. In December 2003, when the US announced it was barring opponents of the Iraq war from bidding for US-financed projects worth $18bn, France professed astonishment. The then French foreign minister, Dominic de Villepin, said Iraq's sovereignty should be resolved before reconstruction could begin.
Hat-tip: Instapundit (whom I beat by four hours on a Lileks post today -- woohoo!)
Posted by jk at June 28, 2004 02:38 PM