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Thanks! Eric


The French are backed into a corner!

Today's NY Times carried this story about Iraq's maneuvering to keep their short-range missiles:

BAGHDAD, Feb. 23 - Iraq publicly held out the hope today that technical talks with United Nations weapons experts might stave off the forced destruction of its most potent short-range missiles. But the country's officials appeared to be bowing toward the inevitable by playing down the importance of those weapons in defending the country against a United States invasion.

Iraq's ambiguous reaction to a United Nations demand made on Friday for the destruction of the missiles came as diplomatic maneuvering intensified ahead of a Security Council resolution to be submitted by the United States and Britain. The resolution is expected to declare that Iraq is not in compliance with orders to disarm and would face military force.

France bluntly demanded that Iraq comply with the United Nations order to destroy the missiles. And Russia sent a former prime minister, Yevgeny Primakov, an old friend of President Saddam Hussein of Iraq, to Baghdad. The nature of that mission was not disclosed.

Emphasis added emphatically. So, the French have made it clear (if I read this correctly) that failure to destroy the missiles constitutes a material breach, non? And according to U.N. Resolution 1441, Iraq should face "severe consequences" - right? right?

So.....what will our Gallic allies say to this from the Guardian:

Saddam Hussein last night defied the US chief weapons inspector, Hans Blix, when he refused to destroy his Samoud 2 missiles and called instead on US president George Bush to join him in a televised debate.

In an exclusive interview with the CBS news anchor, Dan Rather, to be screened in the US tomorrow night, the Iraqi leader denied that the Samouds violated UN mandates and said he would not destroy them.

No transcripts of the first interview that President Saddam has conducted with a foreign journalist for 12 years were available last night. But Mr Rather said: "Saddam indicated he does not intend to destroy the missiles or pledge to destroy them as demanded by Blix."

This past weekend, I had a post (below) which I titled "This is it" because I was sure that Hussein would not destroy the missiles. This news comes on the heels of the U.S. introducing a new resolution to the United Nations authorizing force. How can even the French back down in the face of this defiance? This is it (again) - this is truly the moment when the United Nations stands for something, or morphs into the League of Nations.