French accused of giving passports to Iraqis
The French government secretly supplied fleeing Iraqi officials with passports that allowed them to escape to Europe, The Washington Times reported today.
It quoted US intelligence officials as saying a number of Iraqis who worked for Saddam Hussein’s government were given passports by French officials in Syria.
The French support, which was revealed through sensitive intelligence-gathering means, angered Washington because it undermined the search for senior aides to Saddam, who fled Iraq in large numbers after the fall of Baghdad on April 9, said the Times.
“It made it very difficult to track these people,” one official told the newspaper, renowned for its defence and intelligence contacts.
Pentagon officials have expressed frustration that few of the most senior leaders identified on the list of top 55 officials of the Saddam regime have been captured.
The capture yesterday of an Iraqi biological weapons scientist Huda Salih Mahdi Ammash –
'Chemical Sally' – brought to 19 the number of senior Iraqi leaders who have been caught. One has been reported killed.
Only one of the captives is ranked in the top 10.
US Secretary of State Colin Powell said yesterday that he did not know how many Iraqi officials had been given haven in Syria.
“Some have been made available to us,” he said.
“Let me put it that way: Who we knew were there are no longer there. They’ve been made available to us, and they will be before the bar of justice of the Iraqi people.”
Nathalie Loiseau, a spokeswoman for the French Embassy in Washington, insisted that neither visas or passports had been issued to officials of the former Iraqi regime since the beginning of the war in Iraq, either in Syria or elsewhere.
“France formally denies this type of allegation, which is not only contrary to reality but is intended to discredit our nation,” she said. “It is certainly time for rumours of this type – totally unfounded and a dishonour to those who spread them – to stop.”
French passports would allow the wanted Iraqis to move freely among 12 EU countries that are part of the Schengen agreement on unrestricted travel. Britain, Denmark and Ireland are not part of the Schengen pact.
The intelligence on the French passports came after reports indicated that a French company covertly sold military spare parts to Iraq in the weeks before the war.
Other US intelligence reports indicated that a French oil company was working with a Russian oil firm to conclude a deal with Saddam’s government in the days before military action began on March 19.
