France had a very strong interest in its oil concessions from Iraq, the guarantee of which was the price France demanded of the US for support in the war against Iraq.
The Americans were greedy and refused to guarantee this, and so France did not play ball.
But it is a very different thing to say that France actually gave US intelligence secrets to the Iraqis.
THAT would be a very hostile thing to do.
That Saddam ASKED is not surprising.
Whether France was perfidious or not will be determined not by the request of the Iraqi, but by the response of the French government.
Politically opposing the US move on Iraq in order to protect French oil interests there iwas not perfidious. The French didn't make this a secret to the Americans.
The Americans knew the price for French support.
They refused to pay it.
And so the French stuck it to them politically.
It would have been better for everyone had the US paid it.
Yes, America rightly and correctly refused to engage in a colonialistic "guarantee" of the oil contracts France had with Saddam; when such contracts must (at that time) become subject to a future Iraqi government, not America.
France helped perpetuate the myth - in the geopolitical media - that America "went to war for oil" when it was France who would have gone to war with the U.S. if the U.S. bought that cooperation with oil, Iraqi oil that the U.S. had, and even no excercizes no rights to make "guarantees" about.
No, we are glad to have not indulged in the colonialistic gamesmanship of the French in their lust for Iraq's oil, and their willingness to dispose of the trans-Atlantic alliance because we refused that indulgence.
It demonstrated the "my way or the highway" self-centeredness of the standard French foreign policy. It also demonstrated that France seldom has any true multinational partnership interest, unless there is some commercial benefit in it for France.
"The Americans were greedy and refused to guarantee this, and so France did not play ball."
According to your statement above, France was blackmailing the US.
The Americans were greedy and refused to guarantee this, and so France did not play ball.
Quite the opposite, France was the greedy party.
The only reason Saddam was giving France a huge discount on Iraqi oil was to buy the French UN veto to stymie the United States.
France happily sold herself to Saddam and proceeded to throw her oldest ally overboard for a little dirty oil money. Now that Saddam can no longer pay, France has thrown Saddam, her newest ally, overboard as well.
Losing France as an ally is good riddance to bad trash.