Webcast News Service, March 7, 2003

In the wake of France's threat to veto a U.N. Security Council resolution declaring that Saddam Hussein has failed to disarm come new revelations that the French are secretly supplying Iraq with replacement parts for its French-made fighter aircraft and military helicopters.

A report by Bill Gertz in today's Washington Times says that an unidentified French company has been selling spare parts to Iraq for the past several months. The report cites unnamed U.S. intelligence officials as saying that the French 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.

The intelligence official cited by Gertz said the illegal spare-parts smuggling operation 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 parts smuggling operation appears to be part of an effort by the Iraqi military to build its air forces before U.S. military action likely to occur later this month.

According to the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies, Iraq has more than 50 Mirage F-1 jets and an unknown number of Gazelle attack helicopters. During the 1991 Gulf War, Iraq sent most of its Soviet-made aircraft to Iran for safekeeping after losing several of the fighters in air-to-air combat with U.S. jets. After the war, Iran, which Iraq had attacked in 1980 and fought an 8-year long war with, doubled crossed Iraq and kept the Soviet aircraft for themselves.

A Bush administration official told the Washington Times that 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," the official was quoted as saying.

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

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.

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

During the 1980s, when Paris backed Iraq in its war against Iran, France sold Mirage fighters and Super Entendard aircraft to Baghdad, along with Exocet anti-ship missiles. In 1987, during the war with Iran, Iraq used one of the Exocet missiles to attack the U.S. frigate Stark, killing 37 American sailors and nearly sinking the ship.

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

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.

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