Paris
FRENCH Foreign Minister Roland Dumas said yesterday that the US
missile raid on a factory to the south of Baghdad last Sunday exceeded
UN resolutions. The arrival of Bill Clinton at the White House, he
added, could ease tension with Saddam Hussein.
The statement made after the weekly meeting of the French Cabinet
confirmed reports circulating in Paris that President Mitterrand and the
French Foreign Office are anxious to distance themselves from recent US
intervention in Iraq and to play down the role of French forces.
On his visit to Paris on January 3, President George Bush is reported
to have urged President Mitterrand to back his plan to ''punish'' Saddam
Hussein. The French leader, however, argued for more limited military
intervention.
The unity of the allied coalition against Saddam Hussein has been
under strain since the start of recent attacks, according to a Paris
press report yesterday. Paris and London last week refused a Pentagon
plan to bomb 12 sites in different parts of Iraq, including civilian
targets such as oil refineries, according to a report published in the
well-informed weekly paper Le Canard Enchaine.
It claimed President Mitterrand's military chief of staff, Admiral
Jacques Lanxade, told him last Friday of the American plans and their
wish for French and British forces to take part. President Mitterrand
refused to commit French planes, judging, as did the British Government
according to Le Canard Enchaine, that the US plan was out of proportion
to Iraqi's flouting of UN resolutions.
The Pentagon informed Paris on Saturday of the planned missile attack
on Baghdad and President Bush telephoned President Mitterrand twice that
day asking for French approval. The French Government, however, dragged
its feet. No statement was made until Sunday evening when the Government
said briefly that no French forces had taken part in the raid on
Baghdad.
Diplomatic reaction from Washington was angry, according to Le Canard
Enchaine, and on Monday the Elysee Palace issued a statement that the US
missile raid had been ''an appropriate response''.
Unofficially, however, President Mitterrand and the French Foreign
Office appear to think otherwise. Diplomats are particularly angry that
France has merely followed an American lead to satisfy President George
Bush's desire for vengeance and serve US interests with no benefit for
France.
French petrol companies Elf and Total, which began negotiating with
Iraq shortly after the Gulf War to exploit the oil fields of Nar Umar
and the Majnoun Islands, are reported to be especially concerned about
French involvement with recent US raids.
Contracts drawn up with the Iraqis have not been signed because of
French misgivings and the continuing trade embargo against the country.
The Iraqis froze negotiations last September, unhappy about French
participation in maintaining the no-fly zones over the north and south
of the country. Elf and Total are pinning their hopes on a change of
government in France's General Election in March to help improve
relations with Iraq.
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