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treek13 said:
Actually, it does matter because it looks like the report that the French violated the sanctions was completely wrong. Roland missiles haven't even been made since 1993 so the 2003 manufacture date can't possibly be true.
According to the update, the French exported Roland missiles to Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war. Since the UN imposed sanctions in 1990, they have neither sold weapons nor parts to Iraq.
Pat
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Pat, there are other accusations on the board that France may have been funneling weapons and weapon related materials into Iraq after the UN sanctions were imposed by utilizing forged "End User" certificates (a popular method used by many illegal arms dealers) to get arms into neighboring countries like Syria where they would then be transported by truck or small planes into Iraq. Another method being investigated is one of bypassing the sanctions by brokering purchases of materials from their own suppliers for direct shipment to neighboring countries where they would be infiltrated by the same means or for direct shipment to Iraq by suppliers in countries knowingly and openly violating the sanctions (like Russia and China). One such instance is that France brokered a deal with a Chinese supplier for a chemical component of solid rocket propellent. Sounds like either skirting or violating the sanctions to me.
The known fact that from 1973-91 on the legal market, France accounted for the second (Russia was first) largest sales total of weapons and weapon related materiels to Iraq and that after the Gulf War, France controlled the largest portion of the "Oil for food" program not to mention that Saddam's govt. was forging new and bigger business deals with the French in an effort to influence the French Veto of Security Council Measures for the use of force prior to the Invasion, makes me wonder what else they could have been up to. And makes me question their motives for attempting to avert the Invasion. Russia's too.
Again, this isn't French bashing, I just want folks to realize that alot of the dissent propagated by France, Russia and Germany against the use of force in Iraq was economically motivated and not the "humanitarian" effort it was "spun" into being for the populace of those countries or the international media. To me the UN has proven to be the biggest three ring circus act ever. Right now Iraqi oil production is at 75% of total capacity with the UN sitting on it's duff instead of forging the go ahead for the sale of this oil to benefit the rebuilding process and finance the formation of the new govt. Soon the Iraqis will have to either sell this oil or stop producing the only GNP resource they have, and the key to their future. The UN is an obsolete and highly corrupted organization of ineffectual lamos.
TSG /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif