Well AI readers, I spent some time this morning reading the “Comphrehensive Report Of The Special Adviser To The DCI On Iraq’s WMD”. AI posted the links to the CIA Website where anyone can read this MASSIVE report:
https://www.americanintelligence.us/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=2329&mode=&order=0&thold=0
I opened up the .pdf document titled “Iraqs_WMD_Vol1”, and performed a basic search on the word “France”.
Keep in mind this is a MASSIVE report, Vol1 is 450 pages! Here are the major points I found in LESS THAN 1 HOUR OF BASIC RESEARCH!
France, Russia, and Syria (then a member of the Security Council) were all quite vocally supporting Iraq in sanctions debates in the Security Council.
Prohibited goods and weapons were being shipped into Iraq with virtually no problem.
Major items had no trouble getting across the border, including 380 liquid-fuel rocket engines.
Iraq was designing missile systems with the assumption that sanctioned material would be readily available.
As of June 2000, Iraq had awarded short term contracts under the OFF program to France totaling $1.78 billion, equaling approximately 15 percent of the oil contracts allocated under the OFF program.
The IIS flagged two groups of people to influence French policy in the UNSC: French Governmental officials and influential French citizens. IIS documents recovered by ISG identify those persons of interest, to include ministers and politicians, journalists, and business people. On 25 January 2004, the Baghdad periodical Al Mada published a list of names of companies, individuals and other groups that received oil allocations from the former Regime under the auspices of the OFF program. These influential individuals often had little prior connection to the oil industry and generally engaged European oil companies to lift the oil, but were still in a position to extract a substantial profit for themselves. Individuals named included Charles Pascua,a former French Interior Minister, who received almost 11 million barrels; Patrick Maugein, whom the Iraqis considered a conduit to Chirac (which we have notconfirmed), who received 13 million barrels through his Dutch registered company, Michel Grimard, founder of the French-Iraqi Export Club, who received over 5.5 million barrels through Swiss companies and the Iraqi-French Friendship Society, which received over10 million barrels. The French oil companies Total and SOCAP received over 105 million and 93 million barrels, respectively (see Oil Voucher Allocations of the Regime Finance and Procurement chapter for additional information).
The top three countries with companies or entities receiving vouchers were Russia (30%), France (15%), and China (10%)—three of the five permanent members of the UNSC, other than the US and UK.
Saddam ordered the MFA and other ministries to improve relations with France, according to recovered documents. The documents revealed that the IIS developed a strategy to improve Iraqi-Franco relations that encompassed inviting French delegations to Baghdad; giving economicfavors to key French diplomats or individuals that have access to key French leaders; increasing Iraqi embassy staff in Paris; and assessing possibilities for financially supporting one of the candidates in an upcoming French presidential election.
The IIS paper targeted a number of French individuals that the Iraqi’s thought had close relations to French President Chirac, including, according to the Iraqi assessment, the official spokesperson of President Chirac’s re-election campaign, two reported “counselors”? of President Chirac, and two well-known French businessmen. In May 2002, IIS correspondence addressed to Saddam stated that a MFA (quite possibly an IIS officer under diplomatic cover) met with French parliamentarian to discuss Iraq-Franco relations. The French politician assured the Iraqi that France would use its veto in the UNSC against any American decision to attack Iraq, according to the IIS memo.
Private companies from Jordan, India, France, Italy, Romania, and Turkey seem to have engaged in possible WMD-related trade with Iraq.
The Governments of Syria, Belarus, North Korea, former Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, Yemen, and possibly Russia directly supported or endorsed private company efforts to aid Iraq with conventional arms procurement, in breach of UN sanctions.
In addition, companies based out of the following 14 countries supported Iraq’s conventional arms procurement programs: Jordan, the People’s Republic of China, India, South Korea, Bulgaria, Ukraine, Cyprus, Egypt, Lebanon, Georgia, France, Poland, Romania, and Taiwan.
The number of countries and companies supporting Saddam’s schemes to undermine UN sanctions increased dramatically over time from 1995 to 2003.
A few neighboring countries such as Jordan, Syria, Turkey, Egypt, and Yemen, entered into bilateral trade agreements with Iraq. These agreements provided an avenue for increasing trade coordination and eventually led to sanctions violations.