France's Ambassador to the US wrote an op—ed in the leftist Los Angeles Times, defending his country from American critics. Ed Lasky gives him a fisking — the internet art of inserting analytical comments in a text. The original article can be found here.

A year ago, when the question of military intervention to disarm Iraq was raised, my country strongly opposed such a step, convinced that Iraq was not an imminent threat to world peace and had no link to Al Qaeda, and that the consequences of a war needed to be seriously weighed.
 
[This is unrelated to the subject of the op—ed: defending France from charges of complicity in the food—for—oil scandal. Why preface the defense with this non sequitur? The Ambassador is merely imitating the fiercely partisan critics of Bush who falsely claim that he stated there was an imminent threat from Iraq. In fact, Bush specifically denied there was an imminent threat. Levitte also ignores that the US moved into Iraq in response to its many failures over the years to abide by UN Security Council resolutions].

At that time, France's position, which was shared by many countries and a number of Americans, was widely disparaged. Although there were many signs of friendship extended to me from individual Americans, for which I am very grateful, there were also many false accusations spread in public to discredit France.

Since then, the diplomatic hurricane has abated. Today, we all understand the importance of what unites us, from our common fight against terrorism to our presence side by side in regional conflicts in Afghanistan, Haiti, Kosovo and elsewhere.

Consequently, I have been deeply surprised in the last few days to see a new campaign of unfounded accusations against my country flourish again in the media. These allegations, being spread by a handful of influential, conservative TV and newspaper journalists in the U.S., have arisen in connection with a recent inquiry into the "oil for food" program that was run by the United Nations in Iraq during the final years of Saddam Hussein's government.
 
These allegations suggest that the government of France condoned kickbacks — bribes, in effect — from French companies to the Iraqi regime in return for further contracts. They say Paris turned a blind eye to these activities.

Let me be absolutely clear. These aspersions are completely false and can only have been an effort to discredit France, a longtime friend and ally of the U.S.
 
[Levitte engages in the same sort of conspiracy—mongering that is so popular in the Arab world and among the loony left in America and Europe: a handful of influential conservative journalists supposedly are manipulating public opinion to discredit France. In fact, many people have serious concerns regarding this scandal—plagued program, or else Kofi Annan and the US Congress would not be investigating the issue. The irony of Levitte's position is apparent when you examine French media which have been roundly criticized for partisanship and inaccuracies. In regard to France being a friend, see The French Betrayal of America by Kenneth Timmerman and Our Oldest Enemy: A History of America's Disastrous Relationship with France by Mark Molesky and John Miller.]

As the former French ambassador to the U.N., let me explain how the oil—for—food program worked. Created in 1996, it was intended to provide Iraqis with essential goods to alleviate the humanitarian effect of the international sanctions that remained in place. The program authorized Iraq to export agreed—on quantities of oil, and allowed money from the sales to be used for food and other necessities. The program was managed by the U.N. and monitored by Security Council members.

Between 1996 and the end of the program in 2003, every contract for every humanitarian purchase had to be unanimously approved by the 15 members of the Security Council, including France, Britain and the U.S. The complete contracts were only circulated to the U.S. and Britain, which had expressly asked to see them and would have been in the best position to have known if anything improper was going on. Though a number of contracts were put on hold by the American and British delegations on security—related grounds, no contract was ever held up because malfeasance, such as illegal kickbacks, had been detected.
 
[Well, it is relatively easy for those administering the program to engage in fraud and corruption; more difficult for those monitoring said programs. Hence, the cases of embezzlement, such as Enron in the US and Parmalat in the EU, which auditing firms had not been able to discover when they occurred over the years.]

Was there corruption and bribery inside the program? Frankly, I don't know. Iraq was not a market economy; it was under sanctions at the time. Customs experts had little choice but to assume that the prices set by outside companies were "reasonable and acceptable," a criterion of acceptance used by the U.N. secretariat, and they had no way of checking whether some contracts were overpriced.
 
[Wait a minute, Ambassador. You earlier claimed that aspersions regarding France were completely false but now say that the program may have suffered from bribery and corruption. Since France was involved in administering the program is it not premature and presumptuous to claim innocence?]

That is why France fully supports the independent inquiry set up by the U.N. The truth must come out.

[Yeah, right. French diplomats are well—schooled in obfuscation and nuance.]

Was France a major beneficiary of oil—for—food contracts, as several conservative columnists have claimed recently? Definitely not. From the beginning of the program to its end, French contracts accounted for 8% of the total. We were Iraq's eighth—largest supplier.

[Ambassador: the claims of French malfeasance also involved future contracts that were waiting for France once sanctions were gone. Why not deal with this issue?]

In addition, throughout the program a sizable proportion of the contracts dubbed "French" were in fact contracts from foreign companies using their French branches, subsidiaries and agents. Among them were U.S. firms providing spare parts for the oil industry (including several subsidiaries of Halliburton). They submitted contracts through French subsidiaries for more than $200 million.
 
[Well...undoubtedly most of the money stayed in France and helped keep the French economy afloat. All this attention given to unrepatriated profits of American—owned companies with foreign operations has highlighted this issue.]

It is also suggested that the money from the oil—for—food contracts passed exclusively through a French bank, BNP Paribas. Wrong again: 41% of the money passed through J.P. Morgan Chase Bank, which, like BNP, was contracted by the U.N. with the approval of Security Council members.
 
[By my reckoning that still leaves a lot of funny money for BNP Paribas to play with, for instance, by contributing to Chiraq or his political allies.]

This leaves us with one remaining accusation: that the French positions on the oil—for—food program and Iraq in general were driven by the lure of oil. Yet France was never a major destination for Iraqi oil during the program. In 2001, 8% of Iraqi oil was imported by France, compared with 44.5% imported by the U.S., which was the No. 1 importer all along.
 
[Absurd attempt to turn the tables on us and accuse America of going to war over oil. The crux of the complaints critics of France have is that France engaged in these machinations to weaken America, curry favor with Arabs and its own burgeoning Muslim population, and to secure FUTURE contracts. Of course we import more oil than France from Iraq...and elsewhere...our economy and population dwarfs that of France...to their eternal bitterness.]

At a time when the U.N. is considering a return to Iraq, and we all agree on the need for close international cooperation to help a sovereign, stable Iraq emerge, I don't understand this campaign. Or the hidden agenda behind it.

 [There he goes again with that conspiracy theory.]
 
[Note to French Ambassador: as a nation that prides itself as a founder of modern diplomacy, you must be aware that Ambassadors are not supposed to interfere in domestic matters.Why comment on our "conservative" media and implicitly involve yourself in domestic politics by repeating unproven allegations  made by opponents of George Bush?. Let me guess...you are one of the foreigners who support John Kerry.]

Posted by Ed   04 08 04