[Airbornelawyer]

This is going to be the fourth or fifth time I have had to write this today, and I am getting tired and cranky about it, so I apologize for any rudeness.

You have posted a Washington Times posting of a UPI wire story based on a report in the UK paper The Independent based on a report in a Baghdad paper, al-Mada, based on documents shown to it which reportedly came from the Iraqi state oil concern SOMO (the State Oil Marketing Organisation, an adjunct of the Iraqi Oil Ministry).

The UPI story is riddled with errors, including, most prominently, the one you chose for your thread title. Where in that article does it allege that Saddam bribed or tried to bribe Chirac? It doesn't. Among other errors, the article says "46 individuals, companies and organizations" were on the list. In fact, 270 individuals, companies and organizations were on the list, from 46 countries. Of these 270, according to Le Monde, 11 were French and none was Chirac.

Those French identified by name were: former Interior Minister Charles Pasqua; businessman Patrick Maugein; Michel Grimard, president of the Franco-Arab Friendship Association (l'Association d'amitié franco arabe); former diplomat Bernard Mérimée; ADAX S.A., a maker of precision parts; a French-Lebanese businessman whose name is garbled; someone identified as Claude Kaspereit (but possibly Gabriel Kaspereit, a low-level Gaullist politico, or someone related to him); and someone named Bernard Desmaret. Several names are unclear as they are bad Arabic transliterations of non-Arab names.

As noted. people and groups from 46 countries are on the list. Among these countries are Algeria, Australia, Austria, Bahrain, Belarus, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, China, Cyprus, Egypt, Indonesia, Italy, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Malaysia, Morocco, Nigeria, Oman, Panama, the Philippines, Qatar, Romania, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Spain, Switzerland, Syria, Turkey, Ukraine, the UAE, the United Kingdom, the United States, Yemen and Yugoslavia, and among non-states, the PLO and PFLP. Groups and organizations include the Russian Orthodox Church, the Communist Party of the Russian Federation and the aforementioned PLO and PFLP.

And the SOMO list, BTW, was generated in 1998, so the opening line of the story, that the bribes were to oppose the imminent invasion, is also a distortion.

The story is a deliberate distortion, spun to play to the pettiest and most ignorant anti-French bigotry in the US. It is a disgraceful piece of journalism, and undermines legitimate criticism of French government policies and actions.