France did something right for once!

[tw]

Originally posted by Undertoad
If the French wanted to prevent war they should have put the screws to Hussein. They might have convinced him to step down without a battle at all. But they didn't, because they were in on the deal, for billion$ in contracts and fetid oil-for-food corruption deals which swayed their interests. So, instead, they helped convince him he could stay in power.

This is simply wild unjustified speculation and best described as an outright lie. We now know the screws were so strongly applied to Saddam that he voluntarily eliminated in 1996 any last program that clearly met the WMD definition.

There were no screws that could have made Saddam step down voluntarily. But then who cares? He was not even a threat to his neighbors. And he would never be a threat to the US - since that was his policy throughout his entire carrer. Saddam did everything possible to avoid conflicts with the US. Unfortunately for Saddam, he made a mistake in Kuwait after we all but let him believe he could invade Kuwait.

It is silly to the point of brain deficiency to think that the French could have caused Saddam to step down. It is naive to say the French encouraged Saddam to remain in power. It was responsible to take the same position as the French did - which is why most all the world opposes the US invasion of Iraq.

BTW, Tom Friedman is not a source of information. But since number of sources tend to be fairly large, then a Tom Friedman source certainly could have been in among the thousands. In the mentime, hate of France for opposing war is akin to hate of the black man - both based upon unjustified and emotional biases.