December 17, 2003

On February 6th of this year I said that the French were supporting Saddam in the U.N. for money.  Now that the Americans have Saddam in custody, I suspect that the French have a lot to worry about.  Bills Hobbs documents this very well here. 10:56:23 PM

Tim Blair: Saddam’s only been in custody a few days, and already the French and Germans have become oddly compliant: Germany and France have agreed to a US request to write off a large part of Iraq's huge $US120 billion debt ($A162 billion). President Jacques Chirac, of France, and Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, of Germany, reached a deal in separate talks with President George Bush's new envoy in Iraq, James Baker. The decisions were taken in spite of anger felt in both countries over Mr Bush freezing out French and German companies from the $US18 billion in construction contracts in Iraq, apparently as punishment for opposing the war. 10:49:23 PM