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IRAQ
Letter Written by French Ambassador to the U.S.A. Jean-David Levitte, Published in " The washington Post ".
Washington, November 10, 2003
The November 3 front-page article "
Hussein Was Sure of Own Survival " reported that " according to
American officials, " who remain anonymous, the former Iraqi deputy prime
minister Tariq Aziz told of meetings between French and Russian envoys and
Saddam Hussein late last year and early this year. These envoys " repeatedly
assured Hussein… that they would block a U.S.-led war " and that
" he might buy enough time to win a cease-fire brokered by Paris and
Moscow ."
I deny those allegations as they are absolutely without foundation : No French envoy was ever mandated to go to Iraq to meet with Saddam Hussein or to give him any assurances. In its message to the Iraqi authorities during the period discussed in the article, France called upon the Iraqis to cooperate fully and actively with the United Nations in order to achieve a complete and verifiable disarmament of its weapons of mass destrction. That message was passed through official channels only, whether in Baghdad (through the French interest section), Paris (through the Iraqi interest section) or New York (through contacts between the French and Iraqi missions). France, which fully subscribed to the objective of disarming Iraq, never ruled out the use of force as a last resort if Iraq refused to cooperate withU.N. inspectors. The article said that Mr Aziz's allegations could not be corroborated. As they have no basis in fact, this is not surprising. Embassy of France in the United States - November 10, 2003
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