OT: French Owned

[Johnny Punani2]

Originally posted by Storm

Really didnt expect any of you to respond in any other way. However because we live in this great land you have the right to be wrong.

nevermind...

[GSF]

The UN is almost as useless as France. Sadam still is hiding Anthrax from us. Easy for the French to whine about the big bad US, they don't have to worry about a biological attack. I'll boycott everything on that list, but the wild turkey will be tough:laugh:.

[Jagsbch]

Originally posted by GaSkinsfan

I'll boycott everything on that list, but the wild turkey will be tough:laugh:.

Agreed;) :laugh:

[StuckinIA]

That Grey Goose vodka is actually pretty good.

Oh well.

[Talent Wasted at a Desk]

Look y'all, reasonable people can disagree about all this. But making this into some sort of U.S. vs. France thing isn't helpful.

France's problem with this matter has little to do with Iraq...it's about the U.S.'s exertion of its power. France thinks it's important, and this is their last salvo at that.

Also, France had a huge "check yourself" moment with its last presidential election, when the anti-immigration (read: anti-Arab) candidate fared better than the socialist. So now they want to be self-righteous about all that and accommodate Arab sympathies...perceived or otherwise...lest Chirac be accused as racist, or worse yet an American puppet.

And about French-owned businesses. Businesses are businesses...they live in fear of an American tariff or boycott or embargo. I'd blame/attack the French media WAY before I'd force a French company to suffer. After all, I believe the free market of trade promotes the free market of ideas, and with the idea of enforcing U.N.Res. 1441, we are dead right.

[Canyonero!]

Originally posted by Talent Wasted at a Desk

Also, France had a huge "check yourself" moment with its last presidential election, when the anti-immigration (read: anti-Arab) candidate fared better than the socialist. So now they want to be self-righteous about all that and accommodate Arab sympathies...perceived or otherwise...lest Chirac be accused as racist, or worse yet an American puppet.

I think France's "check yourself" moment differs depending on who you ask. France has the highest Muslim population (percentage wise) of any Western European country. I saw Le Pen's anti-immigration leanings as a spin-off of his usual anti-Semitic & anti-US idiocy.

Frankly, we'd be in a better position (from the pro-liberate Iraq view) if Le Pen had won the election in France. Do you think the world would be siding with a hate monger so easily if things were that way?

On the other hand, none of these anti-war people at the marches seem to care that their rallies were organized by a neo-Stalinist organization in the World Workers Party (through their ANSWER group). So what do I know?

[The Dark Horse]

"Pack your bags and go nestle in with your French buddies."

Are you implying that I leave this country and move to France? Or are you suggesting that I make more French friends in the US?

Isn't your job, at the most fundamental level, protecting the principals laid out in the US Constitution? If so, don't you think you're being a little hypocritical?

"There you can spin you anti-American rhetoric all you want and feel much better about yourselves in the process."

I don't agree with our foreign policy right now - hence my cry for someone like Henry Kissinger. Kissinger would have already sold the French and Germans on our plan and none of this BS would be going down. In my opinion, we have been overaggressive in our diplomacy and Bush's clonies haven't been able to close the deal because of their aggressiveness.

If having that opinion makes me less of an American in your eyes or anyone elses, that's fine. I can live with it.

"We could use a few less of you short term memory folks around anyway..."

My understanding of US history is enough I am able to distinguish effective foreign policy from ineffective foreign policy.

The United States as we know it would not exist if not for the French. They were the turning point of the Revolutionary War if you really want to go down that road but that's irrelevant. The past is the past.

[Glenn X]

Originally posted by Storm

while its obvious that the french disagree with our position, I seriously doubt they are trying to sell one more Mirage part to the Iraqis before the war starts just to make a little more money.

There is an arms embargo on Iraq and has been in place since 91. I can see the russians trying to circumvent it, its highly doubtful an western country is doing it. Probably just another rumor started to make those dissagreeing with us look bad.

And the truth shall set you free...

http://www.washtimes.com/national/20030307-545570.htm

Iraq strengthens air force with French parts

By Bill Gertz

THE WASHINGTON TIMES

March 7, 2003

A French company has been selling spare parts to Iraq for its fighter jets and military helicopters during the past several months, according to U.S. intelligence officials.

The unidentified company sold the parts to a trading company in the United Arab Emirates, which then shipped the parts through a third country into Iraq by truck.

The spare parts included goods for Iraq's French-made Mirage F-1 jets and Gazelle attack helicopters.

An intelligence official said the illegal spare-parts pipeline was discovered in the past two weeks and that sensitive intelligence about the transfers indicates that the parts were smuggled to Iraq as recently as January.

Other intelligence reports indicate that Iraq had succeeded in acquiring French weaponry illegally for years, the official said.

The parts appear to be included in an effort by the Iraqi military to build up materiel for its air forces before any U.S. military action, which could occur before the end of the month.

The officials identified the purchaser of the parts as the Al Tamoor Trading Co., based in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. A spokesman for the company could not be reached for comment.

The French military parts were then sent by truck into Iraq from a neighboring country the officials declined to identify.

Iraq has more than 50 Mirage F-1 jets and an unknown number of Gazelle attack helicopters, according to the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies.

An administration official said the French parts transfers to Iraq may be one reason France has so vehemently opposed U.S. plans for military action against Iraq. "No wonder the French are opposing us," this official said.

The official, however, said intelligence reports of the parts sale did not indicate that the activity was sanctioned by the French government or that Paris knows about the transfers.

The intelligence reports did not identify the French company involved in selling the aircraft parts or whether the parts were new or used.

The Mirage F-1 was made by France's Dassault Aviation. Gazelle helicopters were made by Aerospatiale, which later became part of a consortium of European defense companies.

The importation of military goods by Iraq is banned under U.N. Security Council resolutions passed since the 1991 Persian Gulf war.

Nathalie Loiseau, press counselor at the French Embassy, said her government has no information about the spare-parts smuggling and has not been approached by the U.S. government about the matter.

"We fully comply with the U.N. sanctions, and there is no sale of any kind of military material or weapons to Iraq," she said.

A CIA spokesman had no comment.

A senior administration official declined to discuss Iraq's purchase of French warplane and helicopter parts. "It is well known that the Iraqis use front companies to try to obtain a number of prohibited items," the official said.

The disclosure comes amid heightened anti-French sentiment in the United States over Paris' opposition to U.S. plans for using force to disarm Iraq.

A senior defense official said France undermined U.S. efforts to disarm Iraq last year by watering down language of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1441 that last fall required Iraq to disarm all its chemical, biological and nuclear weapons programs.

France, along with Russia, Germany and China, said yesterday that they would block a joint U.S.-British U.N. resolution on the use of force against Iraq.

French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin told reporters in Paris on Wednesday that France "will not allow a resolution to pass that authorizes resorting to force."

"Russia and France, as permanent members of the Security Council, will assume their full responsibilities on this point," he stated.

France has been Iraq's best friend in the West. French arms sales to Baghdad were boosted in the 1970s under Premier Jacques Chirac, the current president. Mr. Chirac once called Saddam Hussein a "personal friend."

During the 1980s, when Paris backed Iraq in its war against Iran, France sold Mirage fighter bombers and Super Entendard aircraft to Baghdad, along with Exocet anti-ship missiles.

French-Iraqi ties soured after the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait that led to the 1991 Persian Gulf war.

France now has an estimated $4 billion in debts owed to it by Iraq as a result of arms sales and infrastructure construction projects. The debt is another reason U.S. officials believe France is opposing military force to oust Saddam.

Henry Sokolski, director of the private Nonproliferation Policy Education Center, said French transfers of military equipment to Iraq would have "an immediate and relevant military consequence, if this was done."

"The United States with its allies are going to suppress the Iraqi air force and air defense very early on in any conflict, and it's regrettable that the French have let a company complicate that mission," Mr. Sokolski said.

Secretary of State Colin L. Powell last month released intelligence information showing videotape of an Iraqi F-1 Mirage that had been modified to spray anthrax spores.

A CIA report to Congress made public in January stated that Iraq has aggressively sought advanced conventional arms. "A thriving gray-arms market and porous borders have allowed Baghdad to acquire smaller arms and components for larger arms, such as spare parts for aircraft, air defense systems, and armored vehicles," the CIA stated.

Iraq also has obtained some military goods through the U.N.-sponsored oil-for-food program.

A second CIA report in October on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction stated: "Iraq imports goods using planes, trains, trucks, and ships without any type of international inspections — in violation of UN Security Council resolutions."

Originally posted by ']['he ]|)ark ]|~[orse

The United States as we know it would not exist if not for the French. They were the turning point of the Revolutionary War if you really want to go down that road but that's irrelevant. The past is the past.

And the present is the present...

The Rat That Roared:

Jacques Chirac has a lot of Gaul

BY CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS

The Wall Street Journal

Saturday, February 8, 2003 12:01 a.m. EST

To say that the history of human emancipation would be incomplete without the French would be to commit a fatal understatement. The Encyclopedists, the proclaimers of Les Droites de l'Homme, the generous ally of the American revolution . . . the spark of 1789 and 1848 and 1871, can be found all the way from the first political measure to abolish slavery, through Victor Hugo and Emile Zola, to the gallantry of Jean Moulin and the maquis resistance. French ideas and French heroes have animated the struggle for liberty throughout modern times.

There is of course another France--the France of Petain and Poujade and Vichy and of the filthy colonial tactics pursued in Algeria and Indochina. Sometimes the U.S. has been in excellent harmony with the first France--as when Thomas Paine was given the key of the Bastille to bring to Washington, and as when Lafayette and Rochambeau made France the "oldest ally." Sometimes American policy has been inferior to that of many French people--one might instance Roosevelt's detestation of de Gaulle. The Eisenhower-Dulles administration encouraged the French in a course of folly in Vietnam, and went so far as to inherit it. Kennedy showed a guarded sympathy for Algerian independence, at a time when France was too arrogant to listen to his advice. So it goes. Lord Palmerston was probably right when he said that a nation can have no permanent allies, only permanent interests. It is not to be expected that any proud, historic country can be automatically counted "in."

However, the conduct of Jacques Chirac can hardly be analyzed in these terms. Here is a man who had to run for re-election last year in order to preserve his immunity from prosecution, on charges of corruption that were grave. Here is a man who helped Saddam Hussein build a nuclear reactor and who knew very well what he wanted it for. Here is a man at the head of France who is, in effect, openly for sale. He puts me in mind of the banker in Flaubert's "L'Education Sentimentale": a man so habituated to corruption that he would happily pay for the pleasure of selling himself.

Here, also, is a positive monster of conceit. He and his foreign minister, Dominique de Villepin, have unctuously said that "force is always the last resort." Vraiment? This was not the view of the French establishment when troops were sent to Rwanda to try and rescue the client-regime that had just unleashed ethnocide against the Tutsi. It is not, one presumes, the view of the French generals who currently treat the people and nation of Cote d'Ivoire as their fief. It was not the view of those who ordered the destruction of an unarmed ship, the Rainbow Warrior, as it lay at anchor in a New Zealand harbor after protesting the French official practice of conducting atmospheric nuclear tests in the Pacific. (I am aware that some of these outrages were conducted when the French Socialist Party was in power, but in no case did Mr. Chirac express anything other than patriotic enthusiasm. If there is a truly "unilateralist" government on the Security Council, it is France.)

We are all aware of the fact that French companies and the French state are owed immense sums of money by Saddam Hussein. We all very much hope that no private gifts to any French political figures have been made by the Iraqi Baath Party, even though such scruple on either side would be anomalous to say the very least. Is it possible that there is any more to it than that? The future government in Baghdad may very well not consider itself responsible for paying Saddam's debts. Does this alone condition the Chirac response to a fin de régime in Iraq?

Alas, no. Recent days brought tidings of an official invitation to Paris, for Robert Mugabe. The President-for-life of Zimbabwe may have many charms, but spare cash is not among them. His treasury is as empty as the stomachs of his people. No, when the plumed parade brings Mugabe up the Champs Elysees, the only satisfaction for Mr. Chirac will be the sound of a petty slap in the face to Tony Blair, who has recently tried to abridge Mugabe's freedom to travel. Thus we are forced to think that French diplomacy, as well as being for sale or for hire, is chiefly preoccupied with extracting advantage and prestige from the difficulties of its allies.

This can and should be distinguished from the policy of Germany. Berlin does not have a neutralist constitution, like Japan or Switzerland. But it has a strong presumption against military intervention outside its own border and Gerhard Schroeder, however cheaply he plays this card, is still playing a hand one may respect. One does not find German statesmen positively encouraging the delinquents of the globe, in order to reap opportunist advantages and to excite local chauvinism.

[Jagsbch]

"A French company has been selling spare parts to Iraq for its fighter jets and military helicopters during the past several months, according to U.S. intelligence officials."

Any Questions....

[NavyDave]

Great article but we have been saying this for awhile over in the tailgate.

FoxNews this morning talked about Bush's plan to rebuild post Iraq that doesnt involve the French who have stated they wont fight Iraq but would be there to rebuild it.

Similar to the story of the lil red hen who couldnt get anyone to plant the grain or harvest it but the not me types were more than willing after the work was done to eat the cake which didnt happen of course.

[Kilmer17]

Accepting these facts would require the leftists to pull their heads out of the sand.

I have cancelled my trip to France sched for the fall. My mother in law has recently done the same for her and her husbands summer trip.

I'll continue to use my Krups coffee-maker and any french product I already have. To throw them away would be a waste of resources. BUt I am abiding by the list and have been for over a month now.

I also only buy my gas at BP.

The luncay of the left has no bounds. They will gather by the thousands to protest our govt, but get their panties in a wad when we do the same to foreign governments.

The lesson to our enemies (including the French) is that actions have consequences. Ask the Dixie Chicks.

[NavyDave]

The Ditzy Chicks will have a chance to apologize soon on Hannity and Combs(sp).

Even when the evidence in Iraq is made public next month or so there will still be apologists, nay sayers from the left still ignoring the evidence or saying someone planted it there

[The Dark Horse]

"The official, however, said intelligence reports of the parts sale did not indicate that the activity was sanctioned by the French government or that Paris knows about the transfers. "

[NavyDave]

Comeon now stop being blatantly ignorant.

There is a track record that goes back 10 years and with bosnian serbs 8 years.

[CounterTre]

Some crazy things posted here already....WOW!

"I wonder if the citizens of Germany and France are boycotting American companies because of our foreign policy."

Are you kidding? Haven't you been watching the news the last 2 weeks. People are protesting and boycotting all over the world? Man bud get real!

"while its obvious that the french disagree with our position, I seriously doubt they are trying to sell one more Mirage part to the Iraqis before the war starts just to make a little more money."

That's just amazingly naiive. The French have more of a financial investment in Iraq than any other nation, if you don't think they are continuing to support Iraq, especially considering how strongly they are resisting our pressure then please oh please send me a fat hit of whatever you're smoking. It should keep me high for days :high:

"Isn't boycotting French products, hurting the people of France, a lot more than the French government? If French wine, tastes the best, I am drinking it. Of course, I don't drink wine anyhow, so I wouldn't have a clue as to what wine tastes the best. I guess, though countries should boycott our products since we had just as much, if not more involvement in getting Iraq chemical weapons as any other country."

It has nothing to do with who provided what 20 years ago to Iraq. it's about dealing with the here and now. So waht we should step back and just let them run roughshod because we happened to have a bonehead mistake 20 years ago? Phaw! Please The French people if they start hurting enough will start to pressure the Government. To their credit the French don't run a totalitarian regime like Saddam does where the people effectively have no power to rise up. The French have overthrown their leaders countless times in the past, why is it so difficult to reason out the possibility that it might happen againat least to the point of policy being affected?

Boycotting because of another country's foreign policy is EXACTLY what should be done in protest. It is the only real and tangible way for us as a citizenry to legally voice our displeasure and be forced to get attention. I find it incredibly distasteful to see Americans out protesting the War when it is so obviously necessary, but to each his own. But like I told my wife (a sickeningly die hard liberal and Bush/War basher) last night when we drove through a protest and she started waving and yelling support, "If you can voice your protest and go the nasty down and dirty route I can voice my support and do the same." I started yelling "Screw you you Leftist pussies! [only when they started jeering/cursing at me because I started out with thumbs down and boo's] Wait till you have someone close to you killed by the terrorists!

In short what comes around goes around.

[KirkNC]

My sister and brother-in-law currently live in Paris (he works for a large US company with its international operations based there). They were greeted at the door of their flat one evening with a sign that read "Yankee Go Home".

.....French gratitude for you.....

[TC4]

Originally posted by KirkNC

My sister and brother-in-law currently live in Paris (he works for a large US company with its international operations based there). They were greeted at the door of their flat one evening with a sign that read "Yankee Go Home".

.....French gratitude for you.....

Really!!!!

If if hadn't been for the US, the French would be eating bratwurst and sauerkraut, drinking German beer, and their kids would be learning to goose-step in school.

And yet we are the villans. :mad:

[The Dark Horse]

"Are you kidding? Haven't you been watching the news the last 2 weeks. People are protesting and boycotting all over the world? Man bud get real! "

Tre, I honestly made that statement because I do not know. My point was this. If people are boycotting our US Companies because of our governments foreign policy stance, then I'd be inclined to think they were barking up the wrong tree.

My knowlege of history I'll admit is much greater than it is of up-to-the-minute current events. I simply don't have the time to keep up with everything that is going on around the world unless it's something major. War is about as major as it gets, especially with all the instability in the world right now, so I'm paying a little more attention.

Just as a side note, I feel it's fair for me to add that my great Grandfather was one of the Free French. If you don't know about the Free French, look it up. My sister is a flight attendant who flies between Newark and Paris. She's never had a problem there.

"There is a track record that goes back 10 years and with bosnian serbs 8 years."

Do track records count?

1979 also marks the year Saddam Hussein became president of Iraq; prior to that he had been vice president, and a member of the ruling Ba'ath party (which itself had been helped into power in 1963 with CIA assistance).

In November 1979 came the Iranian hostage crisis, when students took Americans at the US embassy in Tehran hostage, and held them for over a year.

In late 1979 President Jimmy Carter's State Dept. put Iraq on list of countries sponsoring "terrorist" groups.

In 1980, the US Defense Intelligence Agency reported that Iraq had been actively acquiring chemical weapons capacities since the mid-1970s.

In September 1980 the eight-year long Iran-Iraq war begins.

Ronald Reagan takes office in Jan 1981.

1982:

Spring of 1982 marked the beginning of tilt toward Iraq by Reagan. This tilt was formalized in a secret National Security Decision Directive issued in June 1982. While the US was officially neutral, this NSDD declared that the US would do whatever was necessary to prevent Iraq from losing its war against Iran.

Apparently without consulting Congress, Reagan also removed Iraq from the State Dept. list of terrorist sponors. This meant that Iraq was now eligible for US dual-use and military technology.

This shift marked the beginning of a very close relationship between the Reagan and Bush administrations and Saddam Hussein. The US over following years actively supported Iraq, supplying billions of dollars of credits, US military intelligence and advice, and ensuring that necessary weaponry got to Iraq.

1983:

The State Dept. once again reported that Iraq was continuing to support terrorist groups

- Iraq had also been using chemical weapons against Iranian troops since 1982; this use of chemical weapons increased in 1983. The State Dept. and the National Security Council were well aware of this.

- Overriding NSC concerns, the Secretaries of Commerce and State pressured the NSC to approve the sale to Iraq of Bell helicopters "for crop dusting" (these same helicopters were used to gas Iraqi Kurds in 1988).

In late 1983, Reagan secretly allowed Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Egypt, to transfer US weapons to Iraq; Reagan also asked the Italian prime minister to channel arms to Iraq

December 1983 was a particularly interesting month; it was the month that Donald Rumsfeld -- currently US Secretary of Defense and one of the most vocal proponents of attacking Iraq -- paid a visit to Saddam Hussein in Baghdad as Reagan's envoy.

Rumsfeld claims now that the meeting was about terrorism in Lebanon.

But State Dept. documents show that in fact, Rumsfeld was carrying a message from Reagan expressing his desire to have a closer and better relationship with Saddam Hussein.

Just a few months before Rumsfeld's visit, Iraq had used poison gas against Iranian troops. This fact was known to the US. Also known was that Iraq was building a chemical weapons infrastructure.

NBC and The New York Times have recently reported that Rumsfeld was a key player in the Reagan administration's strong support for Iraq, despite knowing of Iraq's use of chemical weapons. This relationship became so close that both Reagan and VP Bush personally delivered military advice to Saddam Hussein. [1]

1984

In March, the State Dept. reported that Iraq was using chemical weapons and nerve gas in the war against Iran; these facts were confirmed by European doctors who examined Iranian soldiers

The Washington Post (in an article in Dec.1986 by Bob Woodward) reported that in 1984 the CIA began secretly giving information to Iraqi intelligence to help them "calibrate" poison gas attacks against Iranian troops.

1985

The CIA established direct intelligence links with Baghdad, and began giving Iraq "data from sensitive US satellite reconnaissance photography" to help in the war.

This same year, the US House of Representatives passed a bill to put Iraq back on State Dept. supporters of terrorism list.

The Reagan administration -- in the person of Secretary of State George Schultz -- pressured the bill's sponsor to drop it the bill. The bill is dropped, and Iraq remains off the terrorist list.

Iraq labs send a letter to the Commerce Dept with details showing that Iraq was developing ballistic missiles.

Between 1985-1990 the Commerce Dept. approved the sale of many computers to Iraq's weapons lab. (The UN inspectors in 1991 found that: 40% of the equipment in Iraq's weapons lab were of US origin)

1985 is also a key year because the Reagan administration approved the export to Iraq of biological cultures that are precursors to bioweapons: anthrax, botulism, etc.; these cultures were "not attenuated or weakened, and were capable of reproduction."

There were over 70 shipments of such cultures between 1985-1988.

The Bush administration also authorized an additional 8 shipments of biological cultures that the Center for Disease Control classified as "having biological warfare significance."

This information comes from the Senate Banking Committee's report from 1994. The report stated that "these microorganisms exported by the US were identical to those the United Nations inspectors found and recovered from the Iraqi biological warfare program."

Senator Riegle, who headed the committee, noted that: "They seemed to give him anything he wanted. It's right out of a science fiction movie as to why we would send this kind of stuff to anybody." [2]

1988

The Reagan administration's Commerce Dept. approved exports to Iraq's SCUD missile program; it was these exports that allowed the extension of the SCUDs' range so that in 1991 they were able to reach Israel and US bases in Saudi Arabia.

In March, the Financial Times of London reported that Saddam had recently used chemical weapons against Kurds in Halabja, using US helicopters bought in 1983.

Two months later, an Asst. Secretary of State pushed for more US-Iraq economic cooperation.

In September of that year, Reagan prevented the Senate from putting sanctions on Iraq for its violation of the Geneva Protocol on Chemical Weapons.

The US also voted against a UN Security Council statement condemning Iraq's use of chemical weapons. [3]

1989

In March, the CIA director reported to Congress that Iraq was the largest chemical weapons producer in the world.

The State Dept reported that Iraq continued to develop chemical and biological weapons, as well as new missiles

The Bush administration that year approved dozens of export licenses for sophisticated dual-use equipment to Iraq's weapons ministry.

In October, international banks cut off all loans to Iraq. The Bush administration responded by issuing National Security Directive 26, which mandated closer links with Iraq, and included a $1 billion loan guarantee.

This loan guarantee freed up cash for Iraq to buy and develop WMDs.

This directive was suspended only on August 2, 1990, the day Iraq invaded Kuwait.

One US firm reportedly contacted the Commerce Dept. two times, concerned that its product could be used for nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles. Bush's Commerce Dept requested and received written guarantees from Iraq that the equipment was only for civilian use.

1990

Between July 18 and August 1 (the day before the invasion), the Bush Administration approved $4.8 million in advanced technology sales to Iraq's weapons ministry and to weapons labs that were known to have worked on biological, chemical and nuclear weapons.

So when US ambassador April Glaspie told Saddam the US did not have an official position on disputes between Arab countries, is it any wonder that he thought the US would look the other way when he invaded Kuwait? After this close and very supportive relationship with the Republican administrations throughout the 1980s?

We all know about the Gulf War. But I want to bring in one more piece of history here, from after the Gulf War.

Dick Cheney, before becoming Vice President, was CEO of Halliburton Corp. from 1995 until August 2000, when he retired with a $34 million retirement package.

According to the Financial Times of London, Halliburton in that time period sold $23.8 million of oil industry equipment and services to Iraq, to help rebuild its war-damaged oil production infrastructure. For political reasons, Halliburton used subsidiaries to hide this. [4]

More recently, the Washington Post on June 23, 2001, reported that figure was actually $73 million.

The head of the subsidiary said he is certain Cheney knew about these sales.

Halliburton did more business with Saddam Hussein than any other US company.

Asked about this by journalists by ABC News in August 2000, Cheney lied and said "I had a firm policy that I wouldn't do anything in Iraq, even arrangements that were supposedly legal." [5]

[1] "Rumsfeld key player in Iraq policy shift" By Robert Windrem, NBC News, August 18, 2002 <http://www.msnbc.com/news/795649.asp?cp1=1>;

"How Saddam Happened," By Christopher Dickey and Evan Thomas, Newsweek, September 23, 2002 http://www.msnbc.com/news/807688.asp?cp1=1

[2] "U.S. sent Iraq germs in mid-'80s" By Douglas Turner, Buffalo News, Sept. 23, 2002 http://www.buffalonews.com/editorial/20020923/1048504.asp

"Following Iraq's bioweapons trail" by Robert Novak, Chicago Sun-Times, September 26, 2002 http://www.suntimes.com/output/novak/cst-edt-novak26.html

"U.S. Supplied Germs to Iraq in '80s " Associated Press story on Yahoo.com, Mon Sep 30, 634 PM ET http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20020930/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/us_iraq_bioweapons_3

[3] "When US turned a blind eye to poison gas" by Dilip Hiro, The Observer, Sunday September 1, 2002 http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0%2C2763%2C784314%2C00.html

[4] "A discreet way of doing business with Iraq," By Carola Hoyas, The Financial Times, November 3, 2000.

[5] "Halliburton's Iraq Deals Greater Than Cheney Has Said -- Affiliates Had $72 Million in Contracts," By Colum Lynch, The Washington Post, June 23, 2001.

[Golgo-13]

My dad is from Germany, so I have been taught from birth about the French. :laugh: :laugh: I have been saying all of these things for years, it's nice to see it get put onto the center stage now.

[ChrisFul]

Oh geez. Boycott French products! Wheee!

So what. If French products are good, I will buy them. That doesn't make me any less American. I love my Nissan 240sx; I like Nissans, they are quality automobiles and I will buy another and I don't give a damn. My father and other members of my family worked for Haliburton Oil and worked in Libya, Saudi Arabia, and in Iraq. Am I any less American? Hell no. Companies != Government. Make the distinction; French companies, like other companies, simply want to make money. Im not going to hold them responsible for their government.

[Riggo-toni]

Agricultural products are HEAVILY subsidized the French gov't as part of the CAP (Common Agricultural Policy), and French farmers have the loudest voice in French politics. If nothing else, DON'T BUY French foods, wines, etc. :finger:

[TheKurp]

Originally posted by Kilmer17

I also only buy my gas at BP.

?????????

[Zen-like Todd]

Companies != Government

First of all, I wouldnt agree with that statement on even general grounds. However, Please note that France is a socialist country and the government owns huge stakes in a huge number of large French companies.

[The Dark Horse]

BP = Beyond Petroleum.

I used to only buy my gas there because I think we can all agree that its really important to end our dependence on oil.

Then I found out how little resources BP actually invests in alternative energy devlopment, most of which is solar. Personally, I like the fuel cell concept better but whatever.

http://www.fortune.com/fortune/articles/0,15114,373412,00.html

[The Dark Horse]

To maybe lighten things up, I thought this was kinda funny.