Is there no end to how low these weasels will go?

[Supreme_Warlord]

France 'sought secret UN deal' in bid to avert row

Blair told of US plans in 2001, says report

Ewen MacAskill, diplomatic editor
Monday April 5, 2004
The Guardian

The French government offered a surprise compromise to the US president, George Bush, in the run-up to the war in Iraq, according to a detailed investigation published in Vanity Fair this week.
The report undermines the public perception of France standing resolutely against the US and Britain in the United Nations security council as the two countries tried to win a second resolution in support of war.

According to a 25,000-word investigation into the diplomatic wranglings in that pre-war period, the French government was offering to cut a behind-the-scenes deal with the US government.

At a lunch in the White House on January 13 last year, Maurice Gourdault-Montagne, an adviser to the president, Jacques Chirac, and Jean-David Levitte, the French ambassador in Washington, put the deal to Condoleezza Rice, the US national security adviser.

In an effort to avoid a bitter US-French row, the French officials suggested that if the US was intent on war, it should not seek the second resolution, according to highly placed US sources cited by Vanity Fair.

Instead, the two said that the first resolution on Iraq, 1441, passed the previous year, provided enough legal cover for war and that France would keep quiet if the US went to war on that basis.

The deal would suit the French by maintaining its "good cop" status in the Arab world and safeguarding Franco-US relations.

But the deal died when Tony Blair led a doomed attempt to secure a second resolution to try to satisfy Labour MPs and government lawyers who questioned the legitimacy of the war. France ultimately vetoed the resolution.

The investigation also claims that Mr Blair and Mr Bush discussed war against Iraq only nine days after the attack on New York on September 11 2001, even though Mr Blair was insisting up until just before the Iraq war began on March 20 last year that no decision had been taken.

Sir Christopher Meyer, the former British ambassador to Washington, is quoted in Vanity Fair as saying Mr Blair told Mr Bush over dinner that the US president should not be distracted by Iraq from the war against al-Qaida.

But Mr Bush replied: "I agree with you, Tony. We must deal with this first. But when we have dealt with Afghanistan, we must come back to Iraq."

Sir Christopher said it was clear "that when we did come back to Iraq, it wouldn't be to discuss smarter sanctions". The government line is that war was never inevitable because Mr Blair and his foreign secretary, Jack Straw, successfully pressed the US to go down the UN route, which it did, and that Iraq could have avoided war by complying with UN demands.

In another twist, the US secretary of state, Colin Powell, admitted over the weekend that his claim at a UN security council meeting before the war about Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction might have been incorrect. He told US reporters that his allegation that Iraq had mobile laboratories for preparing WMD might not have been based, as he claimed at the time, on solid evidence.

Mr Powell said: "I'm not the intelligence community, but I probed and I made sure, as I said in my presentation, these are multi-sourced. Now, if the sources fell apart we need to find out how we've gotten ourselves in that position."

[Col. Crackpot]

French dupicity is a suprise to you , why exactly?

[theski]

Col. Crackpot wrote

French dupicity is a suprise to you , why exactly?

I don't think that is who he taking offense to.... [/b]

[Sharp-kun]

Oh what a tangled web we weave.

[Durandal]

French dupicity is a suprise to you , why exactly?

You might want to invest in an education so you can learn how to read. The article says that the French offered a compromise to keep quiet about the war if the US didn't motion for another resolution and instead went to war on the basis of 1441 (which the French would not oppose). But the US rejected their offer.

That in and of itself isn't so bad. The rest of the UN wouldn't hear of another resolution anyway and demanded that we provide better justification for invading the country. But the fact that we basically started a smear campaign against the French domestically is what makes this so low and despicable. Though this is hardly atypical behavior for the Bush administration on either foreign or domestic fronts. Lying to get your way, demonizing entire groups of people with no good reason, et cetera.

[Sharp-kun]

While I'm not doubting this, are there any better sources than the Guardian for it?

[Frank Hipper]

The investigation also claims that Mr Blair and Mr Bush discussed war against Iraq only nine days after the attack on New York on September 11 2001, even though Mr Blair was insisting up until just before the Iraq war began on March 20 last year that no decision had been taken.

Sir Christopher Meyer, the former British ambassador to Washington, is quoted in Vanity Fair as saying Mr Blair told Mr Bush over dinner that the US president should not be distracted by Iraq from the war against al-Qaida.

But Mr Bush replied: "I agree with you, Tony. We must deal with this first. But when we have dealt with Afghanistan, we must come back to Iraq."

Does anyone remember anything being said in public about Iraq that early in the game?
I remember the attempts to tie Iraq to September 11th coming much later.

[Sharp-kun]

The investigation also claims that Mr Blair and Mr Bush discussed war against Iraq only nine days after the attack on New York on September 11 2001, even though Mr Blair was insisting up until just before the Iraq war began on March 20 last year that no decision had been taken.

Sir Christopher Meyer, the former British ambassador to Washington, is quoted in Vanity Fair as saying Mr Blair told Mr Bush over dinner that the US president should not be distracted by Iraq from the war against al-Qaida.

But Mr Bush replied: "I agree with you, Tony. We must deal with this first. But when we have dealt with Afghanistan, we must come back to Iraq."

Does anyone remember anything being said in public about Iraq that early in the game?
I remember the attempts to tie Iraq to September 11th coming much later.

I'm sure there were some, though not as definate.

Blair gets a cookie for at least trying to put Bush off the idea.

[Howedar]

What is the problem with this? That's how diplomacy works.

[Sharp-kun]

What is the problem with this? That's how diplomacy works.

It is, and I'm sure the French would do the same if the positions were reversed.

It doesn't mean we have to like it.

[Durandal]

What is the problem with this? That's how diplomacy works.

I was unaware that diplomacy worked by starting a public smear campaign against countries who disagreed with you, even though they offered a compromise under the table anyway. No, that would be how being a unilateralist asshole works.

Does anyone remember anything being said in public about Iraq that early in the game?
I remember the attempts to tie Iraq to September 11th coming much later.

I can't even remember when Iraq was first mentioned. I just remember it was something like his little tirade against steroid use in sports: out of left field and completely irrelevant.

[Howedar]

I was unclear. I don't see the problem with what the French did. The actions of the US were definately distasteful.