Backing Bush Has Won You Nothing, Chirac Tells Britain

Backing Bush Has Won You Nothing, Chirac Tells Britain
By Charles Bremner in Paris and Philip Webster, Political Editor
November 16, 2004

JACQUES CHIRAC dealt a blow to Tony Blair’s attempt to heal the wounds between the US and Europe last night by saying that the Prime Minister had won nothing for supporting the war against Iraq.

As Mr Blair used a keynote speech to present Britain as a “bridge across the Atlantic”, President Chirac doubted whether anyone could play the “honest broker”. Speaking before he visits London on Thursday, he said that it was not in the nature of this Administration to return favours.

Mr Blair suffered another setback when Colin Powell, the US Secretary of State and the administration figure most trusted by Europe, resigned. There were doubts over whether his successor, possibly Condoleezza Rice, the National Security Adviser, would be as accommodating.

Mr Chirac, speaking to British journalists, including The Times, soon after General Powell’s announcement, revealed that he had urged Mr Blair to demand the relaunch of the Middle East peace process in return for backing the war.

“Well, Britain gave its support but I did not see anything in return. I’m not sure it is in the nature of our American friends at the moment to return favours systematically.”

In other remarks that will sting the Bush Administration, he again outlined his vision of a “multipolar” world in which a united Europe would be equal with the US, and mocked Donald Rumsfeld, the US Defence Secretary, for his division of Europe into old and new.

Mr Chirac said that there would be no division between Britain and France.

“It is like that nice guy in America — what’s his name again? — who spoke about ‘old Europe’. It has no sense. It’s a lack of culture to imagine that. Imagining that there can be division between the British and French vision of Europe is as absurd as imagining that we are building Europe against the United States.”

The comments underline the scale of the task facing Mr Blair as he tries to be a bridge between Europe and America, a job to which he devoted last night’s foreign policy speech at Guildhall in London.

The Prime Minister, aware that Mr Powell’s departure would be received with apprehension by European governments, bluntly told the US Administration to reach out to Europe and enlist its support in the war against terrorism.

“Multilateralism that works should be its aim. I have no sympathy for unilateralism for its own sake,” he said.

Mr Blair also said that Europe had a big opportunity because the US realised that lasting security against terrorism could not be provided by conventional military force but required a commitment to democracy and freedom.

Democracy was the meeting point for Europe and America. He was not advocating military solutions to achieve it but Europe and America should work together to bring democracy to places denied it.

He balanced his warning to the Americans by telling Europe that it was not sensible to ridicule US arguments or parody their political leaders.

Mr Blair hinted that he understood the difficulties, even before M Chirac’s intervention. He said that Britain’s role could be a bridge, a pivot or even a “damn high wire”.

Mr Chirac, whose visit to Britain concludes the Entente Cordiale anniversary celebrations, said: “I am not sure, with America as it is these days, that it would be easy for someone, even the British, to be an honest broker.”