Bulletin de liaison et d'information - Institut kurde de Paris

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Revue de Presse-Press Review-Berhevoka Çapê-Rivista Stampa-:-Oentro de la Prensa-Basm Özeti
. . .
French pave W;lYforrole
in Iraq
.' tics of the. Iràq crisis suddenly ChaÏ1ges or Germany to sendtrOops to. Iraq, and
By Ehline. Sciolino .
and France is âSked to find troops to neither country has offered.
PARIS: The open-ended. American
help fulfill a UN mandate, senior But the strategy o( setting conditions
military occupation of Iraq has forced
French officials said. Francecould put for possible .troop deployment in Iraq
France to contemplate whether and
together a force of 8,000 to l~,OOO' could backfire. When SeCretary Gener- .
how to help with the aftereffects ofa
troops, some of them from.otherlDter- .al Kofi Annan of the UN asked Chirac
national missions, the officials added. in May to send French troops to lead a
The remarks by Chirac and Vlllepin .peacekeeping force in the Democratic .
setting conditions for troop deploy- Republic of the Congo, Chirac did not
ments were intended in part to pre- ,say no but responded with a l~st oftough ,
war that it opposed. .
There are no illusions in the corridors
of power in Pa~s that President
Jacques Chirac and hiS outspok~n f,?reign
minister, Dominique de Vlllep1O,
will be able to repair' the damage to
their relationship with the Bush administration.
By all accotints, C.hirac and
Bush do not particUlarly like èach other,
and their administrations deal with
each other more out. of need than
friendship. . . . .
But the vulnerability of American
soldiers in Iraq and the determination
by the American military to internationalize
.the. troop presence on the
ground have Changed the political and
diplomatic landscape and raised the
possibility that France - and pe~ha~s
Washington's other reluctan.t alhes ID
NATO - could somehow contribute to
making peacein Iraq. .. .
Chirac has ruled out anypartlclpation
of French troops in a peaceinaking
or peacekeeping regime unless there is
a United Nati?ns ~andate.
AIid in a radio interview last week, ,
\.'111epinargue~that OJ;l~Ya Security
Council resolution handIDg responsibility
for Iraq's security and its political
and economic future to the UN
'~ould secure thepeace. Criticizing the
Ainerican plan to add foreign forces to
its existing coalition, Villep.În said,
"Piecing together a system With what
already exists, adding foreign troops to
coalition forces, does not seem to us the
best way to guarantee se-
News curity in Iraq." .
Analysis That said, ~ench military
planners are drawing
up contingency plans to send troops t?
Iraq il?-the unlikely event that the poh- .
empt any American request for troops~ . conditions that would have to be met
Their thinking goes something like first. He was said'by aides to have been
this: By setting the bar so high,. the stunned, when 'the conditions were
U~ited States either will not ask for swiftly met and he found himself hav-,
Frehch troops or will refuse to accept ing to deliver on his promise.
French conditions for sending them ' As for Iraq, two culinary images.
uIÏder'a UN umbrella. 'spring to mind in explaining the French
"In one sense, we were sending a sig-' dileinma. There is an inclination to let
, nal to Washington," said one senior' the Bush administration, as one senior
French official "We didn't want to'be 'French officiai put it, "mijoter dans son
faced with having to say no." He added,' jus" - "stew in its own juices" - ,by
"The French army would feel humiliat- leaving it alone to secure the peace.;
ed to go to Iraq and be put in the Same ,There is also a determination to "ne pas,
category as the Poles or the Uruguay- jetter de l'huile sur la feu" - "not ,to
ans as part ol the cleariup t~a~ " throw oil on the fire." That is why there
. Following intense questlomng at a has been no official critiCism of the fail-
Senate hearing this. month, Defe~e ure by American and British forces tq
Secretary DoruildRuJilsfeld, who IS find so-clllied weaponsof 'mass destill
enraged over France's refus,al t~
support the w:ar effort, told reporters' struction in Iraq -..: the ostensible reathat
the United States "would be happy , son for going to war in the first place -
to have troops Û