The French Friends of Saddam

Anyone still wondering about the support for Saddam's dictatorship by the leaders of France?

Well, the Daily Telegraph in the UK reports that one of the election campaign boosters for Jacques Chirac last time in France was none other than Saddam Hussein. According to the series of Iraqi intelligence service memorandums uncovered by investigators working for the energy committee of the US House of Representatives, it seems that Iraqi Baathists, including the head of the 2nd Department of the Mukhabarat - the Iraqi intelligence service, were trying to tamper with Western politics and identified a group of politicians and businessmen close to Mr Chirac open to Iraqi bribes.

Saddam Hussein's agents were planning to bribe members of the French political elite in the run-up to the Anglo-American invasion, including an offer to help fund President Jacques Chirac's 2002 re-election campaign. That bid failed when Mr Chirac's aides supposedly said they did not need the cash, meaning they were afraid of getting caught. The Mukhabarat had conveyed the message that "Iraq is prepared to offer financial support to Chirac, for his election campaign. [Mrs Bachelot] replied joyfully that she will deliver this offer to the financial official of the election campaign." The Chirac campaign had expressed the "gratitude and appreciation of France". The agents were trying to operate via Roselyne Bachelot, then a member of the French National Assembly and the spokesman for Mr Chirac's re-election campaign. The Mukhabarat described Mrs Bachelot as "a friend of Iraq".

The planned campaign included a long list of potential recipients including former President Valery Giscard d'Estaing, former interior minister Charles Pasqua, former defence and interior minister Jean-Pierre Chevenement, former defence and interior minister Pierre Joxe and former European Commission president Jacques Delors.