The Rest of the Story: What the Local "Right Wing Spinners" Don't want you to see !

French troops to replace US marines in Spanish national parade
MADRID, Oct 5 (AFP) - French troops will replace US marines at this year's national day parade in Spain on October 12, Defence Minister Jose Bono said on Tuesday.  

According to Bono, the invitation to the French marks 60 years since the  liberation of Paris from Nazi occupation and pays "homage to the Spaniards" who were also involved in that momentous event at the end of World War II.  

French General Leclerc's forces which entered Paris on the evening of August 24, 1944, contained some Republican veterans from the Spanish Civil War.  

Bono told reporters the decision to invite the French in no way constituted a change to relations founded on "friendship and respect" which Spain enjoyed with the United States  

But in a dig at the conservative government which lost power at the polls in March after strongly backing the US-led intervention in Iraq - a hugely unpopular policy - Bono said the new Socialist administration wanted to "show its sovereignty".  

As such, he vowed it would not indulge in "subordination" or "fall to its knees" before another country -- a clear allusion to the new government's view that the government it replaced was in thrall to Washington over Iraq.  

For the past two years US troops have marched in Spain's national parade in a mark of respect for the victims of the September 11 attacks in the United States.

source: http://www.expatica.com/source/site_article.asp?subchannel_id=58&story_id=12557&name=French+troops+to+replace+US+marinesin+Spanish+national+parade


Book says U.S. almost got French help in Iraq
The Associated Press The Associated Press
Thursday, October 7, 2004
PARIS

President Jacques Chirac seriously considered committing as many as 15,000 troops to the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq until tensions over timing of the attack scuttled prospects for cooperation, a new book in France says.
The book, "Chirac Contre Bush: L'Autre Guerre" ("Chirac vs. Bush: The Other War"), says that, as late as January 2003, two months before the invasion, Chirac was on the fence about offering French forces on condition that UN arms inspectors be allowed to continue their work before a war.
But Chirac balked amid signs that President George W. Bush was intent on attacking Saddam Hussein's regime without support from the UN Security Council, the book says, derailing talks over a possible French role.
A shaky personal relationship between the two presidents contributed to the ill feeling engendered during the Iraq debate, and U.S. officials eavesdropped on phones used by Chirac, the book alleges.
During the time of Chirac's uncertainty, France pressed for renewed efforts by UN weapons inspectors to disarm Iraq. Chirac became a leading advocate for a peaceful resolution to the threat that was said to be posed by Saddam.
The authors, Thomas Cantaloube and Henri Vernet, reporters for the Parisien newspaper based respectively in Washington and Paris, said their book was based on interviews with at least 50 French and American government and military officials. The book reached bookstores in France on Wednesday.
A spokesman for Chirac was traveling in Asia with him and could not immediately be reached for comment.
In one of its most significant allegations, the book says a French general, Jean-Patrick Gaviard, was sent to Washington on Dec. 16, 2002, and offered between 10,000 and 15,000 troops, plus military planes and other equipment for an Iraq invasion, on condition that UN inspectors be allowed to continue their work.
Captain Frederic Solano, a spokesman for the French Air Force said Wednesday that Gaviard had not made any commitments.
U.S. officials told Gaviard that it might be too late to include the French, the book says.
Until January, Chirac held French forces at the ready, assuming that Saddam would make a mistake and that the United Nations would support an invasion, according to the book.
The longtime U.S.-French alliance also played a part in talks between Paris and Washington, Cantaloube said in a telephone interview Wednesday.
"There was an optimism in the willingness not to break this old French-American alliance," he said.
Cantaloube said there had also been a "blindness" in the French government to the neoconservative movement in the United States and to "the fact that George Bush was not someone who listened much and who followed through on his ideas."
"Jacques Chirac understood this in early 2003, but it took some time," Cantaloube said.
The book quotes an unidentified French military official as recalling that a U.S. counterpart had told him: "The relationship between your president and ours is irreparable on a personal level."

source: http://www.iht.com/articles/542348.htm






French Troops Readied for War
Guardian
January 7, 2003

The French president, Jacques Chirac, today gave his clearest indication yet that France could participate in a US-led war against Iraq as he called on troops to be ready for possible deployment. Mr Chirac said there was reason to believe that French forces will continue to be needed in certain "operational theatres", a reference to civil unrest in the Ivory Coast, where more than 2,000 French troops are currently engaged.

But then, speaking during annual new year's wishes to France's armed forces, he added that, "alas, other [theatres] could open up", a clear reference to Iraq. "To be prepared is at the heart of the soldier's job," Mr Chirac said, adding: "In particular, we have to be attentive to the way in which United Nations security council resolution 1441 is applied by Iraq." This is the crucial resolution that entitles UN weapons inspectors to visit any facility or property in Iraq at any time and warns Baghdad of serious consequences if it fails to comply with weapons inspections.

Paris has been opposed from the beginning to unilateral US action in Iraq and has demanded that Washington get UN security council approval before sending in the troops. But the White House is likely to be encouraged by Mr Chirac's comments today.

However any French support of US action is still likely to be qualified and reluctant. France's defence minister, Michele Alliot-Marie, told French radio station RTL earlier today that the French army was not making specific preparations for an eventual war in Iraq but that "the French army is ready to fulfill its obligations when necessary".

Ms Alliot-Marie reiterated France's stance on Iraq, saying that any armed intervention must be used only as a last resort in forcing Saddam Hussein to comply with UN disarmament resolutions. She added that for the moment, UN weapons inspectors have faced "no hindrances" in the course of their work.

The UN inspectors' first report is due on January 27, a deadline which Washington has identified as the point at which the US president, George Bush, would begin his decision-making on whether to go to war to disarm Iraqi president Saddam Hussein and end his 35-year rule.

Mr Chirac spoke as the prime minister, Tony Blair, was reaffirming Britain's strong backing of the Bush administrations standoff with Iraq.

source: http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/issues/iraq/attack/2003/0107france.htm