TEFLON FRANCE

Saddam and the French Connection (Fraser Nelson and James Kirkup The Scotsman, October 7th, 2004)

SADDAM HUSSEIN believed he could avoid the Iraq war with a bribery strategy targeting Jacques Chirac, the President of France, according to devastating documents released last night.

Memos from Iraqi intelligence officials, recovered by American and British inspectors, show the dictator was told as early as May 2002 that France - having been granted oil contracts - would veto any American plans for war.

But the Iraq Survey Group (ISG), which returned its full report last night, said Saddam was telling the truth when he denied on the eve of war that he had any weapons of mass destruction (WMD). He had not built any since 1992.

The ISG, who confirmed last autumn that they had found no WMD, last night presented detailed findings from interviews with Iraqi officials and documents laying out his plans to bribe foreign businessmen and politicians.

Although they found no evidence that Saddam had made any WMD since 1992, they found documents which showed the "guiding theme" of his regime was to be able to start making them again with as short a lead time as possible."

Saddam was convinced that the UN sanctions - which stopped him acquiring weapons - were on the brink of collapse and he bankrolled several foreign activists who were campaigning for their abolition. He personally approved every one.

To keep America at bay, he focusing on Russia, France and China - three of the five UN Security Council members with the power to veto war. Politicians, journalists and diplomats were all given lavish gifts and oil-for-food vouchers.

Tariq Aziz, the former Iraqi deputy prime minister, told the ISG that the "primary motive for French co-operation" was to secure lucrative oil deals when UN sanctions were lifted. Total, the French oil giant, had been promised exploration rights. [...]

"Just as I have had to accept that the evidence now is that there were not stockpiles of actual weapons ready to be deployed, I hope others have the honesty to accept that the report also shows that sanctions weren’t working," he (Tony Blair) said.

Fat chance of that. While Europeans politicians and their popular media hammer away repeatedly at the WMD issue and attack the U.S. and Britain in the bluntest terms, you have to read opinion journals or blogs to learn the full scope of European corruption and their illegal efforts to support Hussein’s murderous regime. Neither President Bush nor Prime Minister Blair seem willing to throw targetted salvos in response to the attacks on their actions, and the MSM is completely uninterested in the Oil for Food scandal, arms sales, oil concessions and outright bribery. Why? What makes Anglospheric leaders and governments so cautious here?