[A-List] France/US split: media smear campaign

["Michael Keaney" <michael.keaney@xxxxxx>]

French complain about smear campaign in American press

Julian Borger in Washington
Friday May 16, 2003
The Guardian

In an unprecedented formal complaint, France yesterday accused the Bush
administration of conducting an organised smear campaign against the French
government through a series of unattributed and unsubstantiated leaks to the
United States press.

Paris has told its diplomats in America to monitor the US press for further
signs of a disinformation campaign, a very public sign of distrust
suggesting that there has been no improvement in Franco-American relations
since the Iraq war.

France's ambassador to Washington, Jean-David Levitte, sent a letter to the
administration and to Congress complaining about a string of news stories in
the American press before and since the war.

They include reports in the conservative Washington Times quoting unnamed
American government sources as saying that Paris had given French passports
to senior members of Saddam Hussein's regime, allowing them to escape to
Syria and then fly to Europe. Following angry French denials, the state
department said there was no evidence to "substantiate the premise" behind
the report.

However, the defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, was more ambivalent,
pointing out that "France has historically had a very close relationship
with Iraq".

Asked about the smear allegations yesterday, Mr Rumsfeld said: "I know
nothing of such a campaign. Certainly there is no such campaign out of this
building.

"I can't speak for the rest of the government."

The French embassy yesterday refused to release Mr Levitte's letter before
it was formally delivered to US officials. But according to the Washington
Post, other stories listed in a two-page annexe to the French complaint
include a 1998 New York Times report claiming that France and Germany had
sold high-precision switches to Iraq which could be used to detonate a
nuclear bomb.

In fact, according to French officials, Paris blocked the sale and informed
the German government of Iraq's pursuit of the switches.

A story which appeared in the Washington Post last November quoted "an
American intelligence source" as saying that France had cultures of
prohibited strains of the smallpox virus. The French government vehemently
denied the allegation.

"As part of the campaign of explanation we are undertaking in the United
States, we have decided to count the untrue accusations which have appeared
in the US press and which have deeply shocked the French," Marie Masdupuy, a
French foreign ministry spokeswoman, said yesterday.