For the archives of the resistance...
True friends tell you what you do not want to hear,
true friends remember who you really are, even when
you have lost yourself...Vive Le France!
"French President Jacques Chirac has mounted a stinging attack on U.S.-led action in Iraq in a speech to the United Nations."
http://edition.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/europe/09/23/sprj.irq.un.chirac/index.html
Chirac: U.S. action brought crisis
NEW YORK --French President Jacques Chirac has mounted
a stinging attack on U.S.-led action in Iraq in a
speech to the United Nations.
Speaking after President George W. Bush called for
world support for the U.S.-led occupation and
reconstruction of Iraq, Chirac said Tuesday the war
had put the U.N. through one of the most severe crises
in its history.
"No one can act alone in the name of all and no one
can accept the anarchy of a society without rules,"
said the French president, who had sat in the hall to
hear Bush's speech.
"The war, launched without the authorization of the
Security Council, shook the multilateral system," he
said. "The United Nations has just been through one of
the most grave crises in its history."
A strong opponent of the war, Chirac insisted that the
right to use force can only come from the U.N.
Security Council.
He called for an early transfer of sovereignty to the
Iraqi people and proposed a Security Council summit to
draft an action plan to fight the spread of weapons of
mass destruction and create a permanent corps of U.N.
arms inspectors.
"The culture of confrontation must give way to a
culture of action aimed at achieving our goals," he
said.
"It is up to the United Nations to give legitimacy to
this process," he said. "It is also up to the United
Nations to assist with the gradual transfer of
administrative and economic responsibilities to the
present Iraqi institutions according to a realistic
timetable and to help the Iraqis draft a constitution
and hold elections."
On Monday Chirac said France would not veto a new
United Nations resolution tabled by the U.S. to
attract more foreign troops and international funds to
Iraq even though many other Security Council nations
called for a greater role for the U.N.
Chirac had called for the transfer of sovereignty to
the Iraqi people "in a matter of months," but the U.S.
is reluctant to set a deadline.
In an interview with The New York Times published
Monday, Chirac said he did not intend to veto the U.S.
resolution, unless it became "provocative."
"We don't have the intention to oppose. If we oppose
it, that would mean voting 'no,' that is to say, to
use the veto. I am not in that mind-set at all," he
said.
But he said France would vote for the resolution only
if it included a deadline for the transfer of
sovereignty and a timetable for the switch of power,
as well as a "key role" for the United Nations.
Otherwise, he said, France would abstain.
He called for the transfer of power in Iraq from
military occupation to the Iraqi people in a two-stage
plan.
The president said the plan would involve a symbolic
transfer of power from the Americans to the Iraqi
Governing Council, then a gradual process of
transferring real power over a period of six to nine
months.
Chirac said if Iraq's council could be given power,
France would be willing to train Iraqi police officers
and soldiers.
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http://edition.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/europe/09/23/sprj.irq.un.chirac/index.html