Friends in need?(Allies: The U.S., Britain, Europe, and the War in Iraq)(Book Review)

Allies: The U.S., Britain, Europe, and the War in Iraq, by William Shawcross (PublicAffairs, 272 pp., $20)

IN late 1974, Jacques Chirac, then prime minister of France, traveled to Baghdad to meet Iraqi vice president Saddam Hussein. The two men discussed Iraq's purchase of French nuclear reactors. The next year, Saddam traveled to Paris; Chirac gave his visitor a personal tour of a French nuclear plant, and declared that "Iraq is in the process of beginning a coherent nuclear program and France wants to associate herself with that effort." Coherent it was: Saddam subsequently told an Iraqi magazine that working with France was crucial "toward production of the Arab atomic bomb."

The French sold Iraq two nuclear reactors and agreed to train 600 Iraqi nuclear technicians and scientists. Paris also agreed to sell Iraq $1.5 billion worth of weapons, including Mirage F1 fighters, surface-to-air missiles, and advanced electronics and air-defense systems. Chirac called Saddam "a personal friend and a great statesman"; Saddam began selling France Iraqi oil on favorable terms; and thus the stage was set for a great Security Council showdown a quarter-century later.

Of course, the French were not the only ones who did business with Saddam Hussein. The U.S. tried its hand at geostrategic balancing by supporting Iraq against Iran's mullahs in the 1980s. But France was determined to stick with Saddam until the bitter end--all the while, oddly enough, invoking moral arguments in defense of its policy. When foreign minister Dominique de Villepin was grandstanding at the Security Council last year, he insisted that the world was choosing between France's preference for peaceful disarmament and America's desire for disarmament by force. Amazingly, the gallery did not burst out in laughter.

In Allies, William Shawcross does not pull punches. In riveting detail, he tells the story of French vanity, greed, and collusion with one of the most barbaric tyrants of the last half-century. In short, this book is a gem. The aim of Shawcross, this exlefty turned neocon, is to tell the story of the alliance that George W. Bush and Tony Blair forged to end Saddam's rule, and of the efforts of the nations that tried to stop them. The Bush administration, whose ability to explain and persuade often leaves something to be desired, should make the Shawcross book required reading for Republican debaters who face the slander of Democrats on Iraq; Shawcross often does Bush better than Bush himself. Our embassies should arm diplomats with this book to buck up U.S. public diplomacy.

Shawcross heaps praise on his fellow Brit Tony Blair, and rightfully so: Blair stood up to France, Germany, a wobbly public, the hostile media, and the worst instincts of his own party. "What amazes me," Shawcross quotes Blair as saying, "is how many people are happy for Saddam to stay." On Iraq, the prime minister was having his Thatcher moment. Blair never hesitated. The BBC and members of the Labour party have pretty much concluded that Blair (and Bush) lied about Saddam's weapons of mass destruction. Rubbish, says Shawcross. First of all, Britain and America were not alone in believing that Saddam possessed proscribed weapons. In Resolution 1441, in November 2002, all 15 members of the Security Council agreed that Saddam had failed to account for illegal weapons and insisted that he disarm. Hans Blix agreed that Saddam had not accepted the necessary disarmament. The entire Arab world never had a doubt.

Of course, it is important to find out what happened to those stockpiles. But Shawcross is right to point out something the media tend to overlook: exactly what it is we have found ...