pro-troops, how come
Out of context: Reply #1
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Apparently you think the US should not be declaring war?
France leads a peacful & innocent anti-Iraqi war movement?
France currently leads the anti-Iraqi war movement. The same country who is owed billions (France now has an estimated $4 billion in debts owed to it by Iraq as a result of arms sales and infrastructure construction projects) from Suddam for selling them 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). The importation of military goods by Iraq is banned under U.N. Security Council resolutions passed since the 1991 Persian Gulf war. 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 the US. You must keep in mind that 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.
NO US blood for oil!
The mere prospect of a U.S. presence in the region troubles the French and Russians -- both key to the U.N. drive to head off war. The French have long been a major player in developing Iraqi fields. And the Russians, via companies such as Lukoil, are angling for a piece of the action. They, too, are worried about anything that causes crude-oil prices to fall. The war "is totally about oil," says a top executive at France's TotalFinaElf. Adds Simon G. Kukes, chief executive of Russia's Tyumen Oil: "I don't see much room for Russian oil companies" in postwar Iraq.
France is by far the biggest player. The giant TotalFinaElf now has development rights to roughly 25% of total Iraqi reserves. Iraq owes Moscow $8 billion in Soviet-era debt. In 1997, Lukoil [French company] signed a $3.5 billion, 23-year deal to revive Iraq's al-Qurnah field, which has 7.8 billion barrels of proven reserves. But the accord was put on ice since President Vladimir V. Putin's support for the U.S.-led sanctions drive.Nobody is innocent.