France, Belgium stall Nato plans to train Iraqis

PARIS: France yesterday backed UN Secretary General Kofi Annan’s description of the US-led war on Iraq as “illegal”, with Foreign Minister Michel Barnier saying that long-held stance was why his country had opposed joining the conflict.
“You well know that what explains our country’s disagreement with the way the war was carried out was that it clearly did not at that time abide by international law and there was not a clear request from the United States to start that action,” he said at a joint news conference with visiting New Zealand Foreign Minister Phil Goff. That was “traditionally” France’s view from the start, he added.
“We have always considered that it’s international law that constitutes the framework for any action, notably against terrorism or for stability in the world,” he said.
Barnier’s comments added fuel to a debate over the legitimacy of the US-British invasion of Iraq that promises to loom large at the United Nations headquarters in New York next week when world leaders and ministers gather for the world body’s 59th general session. Annan threw the spotlight back on the issue and tore the skin off old transatlantic wounds when he told BBC radio on Wednesday that the United States had failed to seek a needed second resolution before launching the war in March 2003. “I’ve indicated that it was not in conformity with the UN charter from our point of view, and from the charter point of view it was illegal,” Annan said.
The US government hit back by claiming it considered that a previous UN resolution passed four months before the conflict gave it sufficient authority to wage its action because Saddam Hussein had refused to surrender suspected stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction.
After a year and a half of US troop deployment in Iraq, no such weapons have been found. The US ambassador to the United Nations, John Danforth, said on Thursday that the UN chief should have kept silent on the topic.
The debate has re-ignited simmering animosity between the pro- and anti-war camps.
France – a veto-wielding member of the UN Security Council along with the United States – was widely perceived as the leader of the latter camp because of highly publicised arguments made at the time by Barnier’s predecessor, Dominique de Villepin, questioning the US justification for a pre-emptive invasion.
Australian Prime Minister John Howard, a staunch supporter of the war, was particularly scathing of Annan’s comment, saying he saw the United Nations as a “paralysed” body.
Goff, speaking at Barnier’s side, emphasised that, unlike Australia, his country “was not a member of the coalition of the willing” and that it “has always regarded (the United Nations) as being critical in finding multilateral solutions to the world’s problems”.
“Any shortcomings of the United Nations can’t simply be blamed on the institution itself but rather on the readiness of international community members to work through that institution,” he said, adding that “it would have been helpful to have had a second resolution to clarify” the legality of the Iraq war.
n NOORDWIJK, Netherlands: France and Belgium yesterday stalled plans for Nato to launch a training academy for senior Iraqi military officers in Iraq, diplomats and officials said. They said the two countries, which have feuded with the United States for two years over the US-led invasion of Iraq, wanted clarification on how the mission would operate but expressed confidence an accord could still be reached in days.
“The discussion today is about the details of implementation and financing,” French Defence Minister Michele Alliot-Marie said at a meeting of EU defence ministers in the Dutch seaside resort of Noordwijk.
The alliance agreed to the mission in July only after a squabble between France and the United States about whether Nato should have a role in the country at all.
France’s argument during the height of the tussle was that such a mission could be the thin end of the wedge, inserting Nato into the Iraqi battlefield through a back door. In Brussels, a Belgian Foreign Ministry spokesman said Belgium also wanted more assurances over who would finance the mission, likely to paid for from a mix of common Nato funding and national financing.
Nato Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer played down differences over the mission. “I am very optimistic we can reach agreement soon on the remaining points. It is essential this training mission begins as soon as possible,” de Hoop Scheffer said at a meeting of EU defence ministers in the Dutch town of Noordwijk.
He said Nato ambassadors would discuss outstanding differences at a meeting in Brussels on Monday. A deal on training could settle almost two years of tension between the United States and France, backed by Germany, over Nato’s role in Iraq that predated the US-led invasion to overthrow Saddam Hussein.
Under a deal worked out among Nato’s 26 member nations, the mission would report to the US officer in command of training operations in Iraq, diplomatic sources said.
A French diplomat said France wanted more assurances, however, that the officer would be answerable to the alliance. “We are not doing this to block or stall ... We do not want the alliance to be subordinate to the (US-led) coalition,” the diplomat said, adding he hoped the remaining differences could be sorted out at Monday’s meeting of ambassadors. – Agencies
Last update on: 18-9-2004