Iraq Notebook
U.N. dispute reportedly kept French troops out

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PARIS — French President Jacques Chirac considered committing up to 15,000 troops to the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq until a dispute over U.N. support scuttled prospects for cooperation, according to a new book.

The book, "Chirac Contre Bush: L'Autre Guerre" ("Chirac vs. Bush: The Other War"), claims Chirac was on the fence about offering French forces as late as January 2003 — two months before the invasion — but balked amid signs that President Bush was bent on war.

The book maintains Chirac ruled out any prospect of sending troops because of a seemingly clear intent in the U.S. administration to attack Saddam Hussein's regime without support from the U.N. Security Council.

At the time, France pressed for renewed efforts by U.N. weapons inspectors to disarm Iraq. Chirac became a leading advocate for a peaceful resolution to the threat posed by Saddam.

A shaky personal relationship between the two presidents contributed to the ill-feeling engendered during the Iraq debate, and U.S. officials eavesdropped on phones used by Chirac, the book alleges.

Authors Thomas Cantaloube and Henri Vernet, reporters for Le Parisien newspaper based respectively in Washington, D.C., and Paris, say the book is based on interviews with at least 50 French and U.S. government and military officials.

In one of its most significant allegations, the book claims a French general, Jean-Patrick Gaviard, was sent to Washington, D.C., on Dec. 16, 2002, and offered between 10,000 and 15,000 troops, plus military planes and other equipment for an Iraq invasion — on condition U.N. inspectors were allowed to continue their work.

Powell to push aid pledges for Iraq

WASHINGTON — Secretary of State Colin Powell is looking at an international conference next week in Japan to win new pledges of aid for Iraq's reconstruction and to get previously promised funds flowing.

Some $13 billion was pledged at a meeting in Spain last year to supplement $18.4 billion approved by Congress. Yet only $1.3 billion of those international pledges have been provided; more than half of that money has come from Britain and Japan, the host of the two-day conference that begins Wednesday.
 
"The problem is that the money isn't flowing as quickly as we would like," Powell said at a news conference with Japan's foreign minister, Noubutake Machimura.

Powell said Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, who is going to Tokyo, "will encourage those who have given in the past to make good on those commitments and encourage those present at the conference to make additional commitments."

An Iraqi delegation will outline its needs and offer a report on how the money will be spent.

15-month Iraq duty ends for Army unit

WIESBADEN, Germany — Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz welcomed the U.S. Army's 1st Armored Division back to its German base yesterday after an extended, 15-month tour of duty in Iraq, joining with soldiers to pay tribute to 130 comrades killed in the Middle East.

Soldiers representing the division's individual battalions, brigades and companies lined up in full battle gear, helmets and desert fatigues as the homecoming ceremony opened with a 15-gun salute for Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the head of V Corps and formerly the top military commander in Iraq.

The division's troops returned by the end of July and many immediately went on leave, leading to the delayed welcoming ceremony. After a year in Iraq, their tour was extended by three months to help deal with rising violence.

Eight 1st Armored Division soldiers based in the town of Baumholder were killed in a single attack near Baghdad on April 29. The division was supposed to have begun returning home by then, and the extension was a difficult time for service members and families.

At an earlier 10-minute ceremony, soldiers laid a wreath before a monument to the dead — a wooden model of a five-ton black granite memorial that is planned for the division's Wiesbaden headquarters.