FRANCE/ IRAQ: President Jacques Chirac has taken the risk of reviving friction between Paris and Washington by criticising the draft Security Council resolution on Iraq which was presented by the US and Britain on May 24th.
Mr Chirac's remarks, at a press conference in Guatemala on Thursday, made clear that France will hold out for a resolution that would give a new Iraqi government power over US troops in Iraq, a deadline for their departure and full control of Iraq's oil resources from July 1st.
The French leader made the remarks while travelling to the EU-Latin America summit in Mexico.
Mr Chirac has complicated US attempts to legitimate its presence in Iraq. The US plan represented a "serious basis, but a basis which must now be seriously improved", the French President said.
The resolution would transform coalition forces in Iraq, the vast majority of whom are American, into a multinational force (MNF). Mr Chirac stressed that the new interim Iraqi government "must have power of decision on the commitment of its own forces and on major operations by the MNF".
The resolution says that US-led troops could use "all necessary means" to maintain order. The spectre of Falluja, where more than 600 Iraqis were killed by US forces in April, lies behind French concerns. The US-appointed Iraqi governing council was impotent in its attempts to stop the assault on Falluja. If the Iraqi government and US forces disagree in the future, Paris wants to ensure that the Iraqis will prevail.
Under the draft document, the US-led force would have a one-year renewable mandate. That is not satisfactory to Mr Chirac, who said that the mandate for the MNF "must be limited in time, it being understood that the Iraqi government which results from elections in January 2005 must at any time be able to end it, or demand a review". If the Iraqi people were not convinced that full sovereignty was restored on June 30th, the situation could only deteriorate further, Mr Chirac warned. "That is why the Security Council resolution must specify that the interim government will enjoy full sovereignty in all areas," he insisted, listing politics, the economy, security and diplomacy.
In particular, Mr Chirac added, the resolution must state that the Iraqi government would "have control of the natural resources of Iraq". Under the draft document, the interim government would dispose of oil revenue under international supervision, but would have no power to make long-term contracts.
The proposed resolution will not be taken to a vote until Mr Lakhdar Brahimi, the UN's special envoy to Iraq, proposes a new Iraqi goverment, to which the US intends to "transfer sovereignty" on June 30th. Mr Brahimi has been consulting religious and political groups in Iraq since early April, and Washington says that it will accept whatever leadership he advocates.
In mid-May, the French Foreign Minister, Mr Michel Barnier, announced that France would send troops to Iraq "neither now nor later". The message thus conveyed, Le Monde reported, was: "Don't count on us to go take over from US forces who occupied Iraq without a mandate and don't know how to get out of it now. We will not get involved in a process that could lead to that."