TONY Blair's case for waging war in Iraq has been destroyed, it was claimed last night, after the official group that spent 16 months searching for Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction finally concluded they do not exist.
Charles Duelfer, the top US arms inspector, said he had found no evidence that Iraq produced any weapons of mass destruction after 1991.
French officials were prepared to provide as many as
ReplyDelete15,000 troops for an invasion of Iraq before relations
soured between Washington and Paris over the timing of
an attack, according to a new book published in France
this week.
According to the book, Chirac Contre Bush: L'Autre
Guerre (Chirac Versus Bush: The Other War), France's
General Jean Patrick Gaviard visited the Pentagon in
December 2002, three months before the war began, to
discuss a contribution of 10,000 to 15,000 troops and
to negotiate landing and docking rights for French
jets and ships.
Military officials in France were interested in
joining in an attack because they felt that not
participating with the United States in a major war
would leave French forces unprepared for future
conflicts, according to Mr Thomas Cantaloube, one of
the authors.
But the negotiations had not progressed far before
French President Jacques Chirac decided that the US
was pushing too fast to short-circuit inspections by
United Nations weapons inspectors. Mr Chirac, the book
says, was prepared to join in an attack if Iraqi
President Saddam Hussein did not allow inspectors into
Iraq.
'Up until December 2002, what everyone told us is that
France thought Saddam Hussein was going to make a
mistake and not allow inspections,' Mr Cantaloube
said. After inspectors appeared to make progress in
Iraq, Mr Chirac's thinking changed, especially after
polls in France showed vast opposition to an attack.
White House and Pentagon officials declined to
comment. The book is a detailed recount of the
deteriorating relationship between President George W.
Bush and Mr Chirac by two journalists based in
Washington and Paris for Le Parisien newspaper. The
journalists, Mr Cantaloube and Mr Henri Vernet, said
that they interviewed more than 50 military and
diplomatic officials in both countries for the book.