Larry

I won't waste my time to bolden, colorize or emphasize. The readers here are more sophisticated than that.

Hang on.....More information coming....

Larry

U.S. confronts France over tech sales to Iraq

SPECIAL TO WORLD TRIBUNE.COM
Monday, April 30, 2001
WASHINGTON � Britain and the United States are concerned that France is quietly selling dual-use components that could be employed in Iraqi military programs.

Diplomats said that London and Washington have raised with French officials the large number of contracts signed by Iraq with French companies. Many of these contracts include components that could be used to help improve Iraqi air defense as well as weapons of mass destruction.

The contracts are said to be worth several billion dollars and include French agreements to supply Baghdad with advanced computers, communications systems, chemicals as well as advanced pumps and special trucks, Middle East Newsline reported. The equipment was said to be required for missile development as well as the upgrade of air defense systems.

The diplomats said that France is being asked to explain the contracts amid a decision by the Bush administration to intensify efforts to halt the export of dual-use and military equipment to Baghdad.

So far, 117 French contracts have been blocked by the United Nations panel that reviews import requests by Baghdad. The contracts are said to total $400 million.

France has been Iraq's ally in the West and has sought lucrative contracts in a range of fields. At the same time, France has joined its Western allies in stopping companies and countries from violating UN sanctions.

For example, France joined Britain and the United States in stopping a Swiss company from purchasing oil from Baghdad. Glencore International AG, the Swiss firm, was found to have illegally diverted a shipment of oil from the United States to Crotia. There, the shipment obtained an additional $3 million.

Larry

Anti-war European troika tries to salvage influence over post-Saddam Iraq

SAINT PETERSBURG, April 11, 2003 (AFP) - With Baghdad's dramatic fall, French, German and Russian leaders dashed to Saint Petersburg on Friday for a summit they hope can somehow influence the aftermath of a war they all fiercely opposed.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, the host whose country's ties with the United States strained since US-led forces pushed into Iraq some three weeks ago, has maintained a silence as key Iraqi cities fall.

The summit -- originally a two-day Russo-German bilateral summit with Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, but later joined by French President Jacques Chirac -- is an attempt to regain the initiative, commentators here said.

It will be the peace troika's first meeting since the March 20 start of the war.

But a Kremlin official cautioned it was unlikely any joint declaration would be made at the talks -- an admission highlighted by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan's last-minute decision to skip the Saint Petersburg powwow.

``There will be no joint declaration,'' the Kremlin official told reporters in Russia's second city ahead of the meetings.

Russian analysts said Moscow's diplomats were bruised from the US-led war's apparent success.

``The rapid end to the war came as a cold shower for Russian diplomats, who were hoping that the conflict would drag on, which would have given Russia a possible role as a mediator,'' said Yevgeny Volk, director of the Heritage Foundation think-tank.

``That is why they called this summit urgently to discuss how to act from now,'' he added.

Paris, Berlin and Moscow formed an anti-war axis that was largely responsible for blocking Washington's attempts to get approval in the UN Security Council for its military operation in Iraq.

That still rankles deep in the US administration, which has displayed little patience either for the United Nations or the three European powers' insistence that the immediate administration of post-war Iraq should be under UN auspices.

``The situation is not good for Putin, who bet on the wrong horse. As Russia is in the opposition, it has lost any chance of influencing the future administration and its economic interests in Iraq,'' said Volk.

Russia has regarded Iraq as a regional ally, and fears it may lose out on lucrative contracts in Iraq's major oil industry because of its fierce resistance to the war if the United States controls the country.

Chirac, who on Thursday welcomed the collapse of Saddam Hussein's regime, and Schroeder, who greeted the ``joyous signs'' of what he said ``could soon be the end of the war in Iraq'' after scenes of jubilant crowds in Baghdad Wednesday, are not in a better position.

``Russia, France and Germany are obliged to repeat that the UN should participate in the administration of Iraq, but I don't see anything that will make the Americans change their plans and stop them enjoying their victory,'' commented Sergei Kazyonov from the Institute of Global Economy and International Relations.

Divisions have even emerged between US President George W. Bush and his close ally British Prime Minister Tony Blair who reportedly wants the United Nations to oversee any interim Iraqi administration, while Washington seeks initial US-British military control.

Annan on Tuesday abruptly cancelled a tour of Britain, France, Germany and Russia this week to discuss the postwar reconstruction of Iraq.

``Kofi Annan decided not to stick his neck out. He understood that nothing will come of it. The United Nations has neither the prestige nor any real possibility of administering Iraq,'' Kazyonov said.

Bush and Blair on Tuesday pledged at a joint press conference in Belfast that the United Nations would play a ``vital role'' in post-war Iraq.

The best France, Germany and Russia can hope for is some form of compromise that would grant the United Nations a role in overseeing elections to a new Iraqi government or brokering a power-sharing accord as in Afghanistan, analysts here said.

``There's a big grey area, beyond the interim period -- how is the new government going to be chosen, who is going to administer elections?'' said Robert Nurick, the director of the Moscow branch of the Washington-based Carnegie Endowment think-tank.

``If it's the United Nations, which some people in the US support, then you could find some middle ground,'' the analyst added.

Larry

Need more? Just let me know.

Soyin Milka

Larry...

The french, the americans, the chinese, the russians, the germans... They are all the same. I'm sure some regular posters here could provide us with a comparable summary of american deals with Irak.

In the end all of your long post could be summed up in a few lines. France's exports to Irak represented around 500 million dollars yearly. That's a ridicule amount. Less than half of a percent of their total exports. Fifty times less than they export to the USA. I know the french are not shrewd businessmen, but if they opposed the Irak war to protect that market, they are really stupid.

If you insist on claiming the french and germans opposed the war to protect their interests, try to make that argument using the euro. At least that argument makes sense. Irak was the first OPEC country to use the euro for international trade. Protecting that is indeed in their interests. They would love to have a strong currency to compete with the US dollar. But the americans are no better. I expect one of the first thing done by the new iraki government will be to switch to the US dollar.

Bah. If you don't like the french, do like the rest of us and just ignore them. I'm sure Chirac likes all the attention though.

Soyin

Larry

Soyin Milka,

I don't know if you bothered reading those articles in detail. But, that's neither here nor there. The fact is, the patterns of these countries speak for themselves. If it looks like shit, smells like shit, and tastes like shit, chances are it's probably shit.

And oh, by the way, here is another pattern you may want to look at.

UN AMBASSADOR ALDOURI, is leaving New York. For where? PARIS! Then, he's off to DAMASCUS, SYRIA, home to the large BA'ATH PARTY, the base which helped put Uncle Saddam in power, and to this date, is supporting the Iraqi regime.


Go figure....What a coincidence, huh?

Optional

Larry,

Your info source and evangelion's info source are NOT, in fact, in substantial disagreement. The difference is that while yours focuses on a lot of details, a lot of names and dates and such like and so forth, Evangelion's actually gives hard data and puts that data into context.

France's total exports to Iraq (the money France makes in Iraq) are 0.15 percent of France's total exports.

There is ony a single company in france that gets more than 3% of its profits from Iraq, which would be TotalElf. Both his and your info sources mention total's 'production-sharing' agreements, but only his mentions that not only did those agreements never get signed, not even all the details were worked out. Because of sanctions, total could not actually implement the deal. Which means that for all the high dollar figures thrown around in your info source, total never actually realized one thin dime from the deal.

France's resistance to war makes no economic sense whatsoever for the simple reason that France gets a miniscule amount of money from there.

Which is not to say france was really all about caring for the poor innocent civilians that were gonna get killed, no, france had its own motives for resisting. It's just that money was not one of them.

-me

Larry

France's total exports to Iraq (the money France makes in Iraq) are 0.15 percent of France's total exports.

Source, please.

Larry

It's just that money was not one of them

Go ahead and belive that. Don't let the facts get in your way.

Optional

Did you not even bother reading Evangelion's posts???

From the VERY FIRST PARAGRAPH:

I would suggest you go back and read the WHOLE thing, you might be enlightened.

-me