The French government denied the charges, but a Syrian employee of the French embassy in Damascus claimed that eight Iraqi officials from the oil and finance ministries had been given passports in the middle of April. "The commercial section of the embassy received passports for eight Iraqi officials and members of their families," he said. He claimed that Paris also ordered that a passport issued for Tahir Jalil al-Habbush, a former head of Iraq's Mukhabarat intelligence service who is on America's wanted list, should be cancelled soon after it had arrived. It remains unclear whether al-Habbush is in Syria.
This can't be true. If it were, it would mean the Syrian government lied.
A link to last weeks expose by Bill Gertz re the French Frogs providing Pass ports to the top Iraqi Criminals.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/906846/posts France helped Iraqis escape
Washington Times ^ | 6 May 2003 | Bill Gertz
Posted on 05/06/2003 7:58 PM PDT by Grampa Dave
France helped Iraqis escape Bill Gertz THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Published May 6, 2003
The French government secretly supplied fleeing Iraqi officials with passports in Syria that allowed them to escape to Europe, The Washington Times has learned.
An unknown number of Iraqis who worked for Saddam Hussein's government were given passports by French officials in Syria, U.S. intelligence officials said.
The passports are regarded as documents of the European Union, because of France's membership in the union, and have helped the Iraqis avoid capture, said officials familiar with intelligence reports.
The French support, which was revealed through sensitive intelligence-gathering means, angered Pentagon, State Department and intelligence officials in 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.
"It made it very difficult to track these people," one official said.
A second Bush administration official said, "It's like Raoul Wallenberg in reverse," a reference to the Swedish diplomat who supplied travel documents to help Jews escape Nazi Germany in World War II. "Now you have the French helping the bad guys escape from us."
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/906846/postsThis just can't be possible, after all Powell went over and set the Syrian's straight.
Guess somebody needs to tell the Telegraph that their sources have it all wrong.
Syria is now our friend. NOT!