French ambassador to Israel's statement copied off the Internet

[Michael Eisenstadt]

The French position on Iraq
 
By Jacques Huntzinger
  
 
Taking into account Israel's experience in 1991, it is only natural that 
the debate on Iraq would reverberate strongly here.

In face of hasty conclusions, I would like to remind our Israeli friends 
of the French position.

Is France seeking to protect the Iraqi regime?

Nothing could be further from the truth. The Israeli government is aware 
of how concerned we have been about the regime in Baghdad ever since 
1991, and even more so since 1998, when the United Nations Special 
Commission (UNSCOM) inspectors left Iraq.

France is not blind. The suspicions are numerous. We know that the Iraqi 
explanations are far from offering guarantees and must be verified.

France is not a friend of the Iraqi regime and it is not motivated by 
commercial considerations: In 2001, commerce with Iraq accounted for 
only 0.20 percent of French exports and 0.30 percent of imports.

The fundamental issue is to know whether, three months after the 
adoption of Resolution 1441 on the disarmament of Iraq, more time must 
be given to the inspection teams of the Monitoring, Verification and 
Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) and the International Atomic Energy 
Agency (IAEA). There are those who consider it necessary to embark on 
the road to war. This is not our assessment. The Iraqi threat can be 
overcome by a vigorous regime of inspections.

If in the judgment of the Israeli authorities today the Iraqi threat to 
their country is minimal, they owe this above all to the fact that 
UNSCOM, the IAEA and UNMOVIC neutralized considerable quantities of 
weapons of mass destruction - far more than during the 1991 war.

Between 1991 and 1998, these institutions allowed for the destruction of 
about 100 missiles, thousands of chemical shells, and nuclear research 
laboratories. Supply lines, which were often convoluted, were destroyed 
and sensitive double-use materials of any origin were documented and 
some of them destroyed.

What does France want now, along with Germany, Russia, China and - let 
us be clear about it - a majority of the countries of the world?

What we want is the uncompromising implementation of the texts passed by 
the Security Council, from Resolution 687 (of 1991) to Resolution 1441.

While the United States, Spain and the United Kingdom have proposed a 
new resolution to the United Nations, France, Germany and Russia have 
submitted a memorandum for the implementation of Resolution 1441, to 
define concrete criteria for disarmament, set deadlines, facilitate the 
work of the inspectors and accelerate effective disarmament.

Resolution 1441 states that another meeting of the Security Council will 
be held if we are at an impasse, on the basis of a report by the 
inspectors. Today, the opposite logic is operating. The inspectors are 
confirming that there is progress. This is the reason France is opposed 
to a new resolution.

Let us be clear: If there is a continuing blockage of the inspection 
efforts, there will be, at a second stage, an examination of alternative 
possibilities, including recourse to force, which we have never excluded.

North Korea's nuclear, ballistic and other programs offer a more 
disturbing scenario. This country, Israel, knows it well. North Korea is 
the supplier of the Nodong missiles, which could have a much more 
destabilizing effect on Israel's security environment than does Iraq.

Some would like to see in France's attitude a desire to thwart American 
policy. I would like to tell them the following:

France has shouldered its responsibilities and sent its personnel and 
forces to Kuwait in 1991, to Bosnia, to Somalia, to Kosovo and to 
Afghanistan alongside the Americans. However, my country reserves the 
right to judge for itself what it considers the responsibility of a 
permanent member of the Security Council: to ensure that international 
action by states remains within the framework of the United Nations 
system created in 1945.

The solution of the Iraqi crisis will have a major impact on the world 
order. It could be an opportunity to strengthen the mechanisms for the 
prevention of the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and to 
confirm the authority of the United Nations, the sole legitimate 
international body when resorting to force against a state is concerned. 
Will it, on the contrary, create an unfortunate precedent by encouraging 
unilateralism and the implementation of a doctrine of "preventive war" 
that would open the way to numerous deviations?

It is easier to start a war than to end one. "Plans," however structured 
they may be, rarely unfold as expected.

Our doubts today are those of four out of five European citizens. It is 
not a question of pacifism, but of considering the consequences of a 
rearrangement of the Arab-Muslim world, the complexity of which Israel 
is aware.

Today's world cannot subscribe to a dualistic logic of good and evil. 
Without conceding anything of the necessity of getting rid of the threat 
of weapons of mass destruction, my country believes in the force of its 
arguments and it intends to promote them relentlessly. This is both our 
right and our duty.

Jacques Huntzinger is the French ambassador to Israel.