The French government's accusation comes in a letter written by the French ambassador Jean-David Levitte to the United States, due to be delivered to the White House and Congress today, a French diplomat familiar with its contents told CNN.
"This is not acceptable," said one French diplomat. France "does not consider it a policy, but considers that some people have done some damage to the relationship."
But a U.S. official involved in national security matters told CNN the French claim was baseless. "There are a lot of things we don't like, and we have not been shy about that," the U.S. official told the cable network. "But there is no campaign against the French."
That the Bush administration bitterly resented the French role in blocking a U.S.-led attempt to win the support of the U.N. Security Council for a second resolution authorizing military action in Iraq is no secret, especially since the French campaign succeeded and the United States, Great Britain and Spain were forced to go ahead and invade Iraq with a "coalition of the willing" without U.N. backing.
"We cannot accept to be accused repeatedly for stories sourced in the administration for things we have not done," said the French diplomat familiar with the letter. "Who did this? Why? For what agenda?" the diplomat wondered aloud.
In his letter, Ambassador Levitte cited eight examples he charged proves that there is a deliberate U.S. campaign to spread misinformation about the French government.
The list which accompanies the letter and which CNN obtained complains about:
Here is an edited excerpt of the text from the list from CNN:
The French Embassy issued a denial, which was published the following week in that section's Letters to the Editor column, noting that a French company had indeed received an order for 120 switches, presented as "spare parts" for medical equipment, but that the French authorities had immediately barred this sale and alerted both Germany and the country that had previously sold the equipment that incorporated the switches.
According to this article, France, along with Russia, Iraq and North Korea possess prohibited human smallpox strains. This "information" was purportedly given to the Washington Post by an "American intelligence source," who mentioned the existence of a "report" on this subject.
At the French Embassy's request, the Post subsequently published a rebuttal from the embassy press office noting that France abides by WHO provisions and by its own national regulations prohibiting the possession of human smallpox strains.
On March 8, the two companies named in the story formally denied these allegations, as did the embassy, which had already given a categorical reply to the question put to it by the reporter. On March 10, the Foreign Ministry deputy spokesperson reiterated the two companies' denial, adding that French authorities had never authorized the export or re-export of such spare parts and strictly respected the arms embargo and [U.N.] Security Council resolutions.
The denial was published, which did not prevent The Washington Times from regularly referring to this case.
Safire asserted in the same article that "he had been told" that the Société Nationale des Poudres et Explosifs had signed a contract in April 2002 to provide Iraq with 5 tons of dimethyl hydrazine, a chemical that can be used for missile propulsion.
The Foreign Ministry spokesman denied these allegations on March 14, noting that it had neither delivered nor authorized the delivery of such products, either directly or indirectly. In his interview with CNN/CBS, President Chirac expressed himself most clearly on this subject.
Although he no longer mentioned the SNPE after that, Safire nevertheless continued his attacks in two successive columns. Moreover, The New York Times never published the embassy's rebuttal to these charges nor took the trouble to answer the letter the French Ambassador personally sent them on this subject.
Needless to say, France fully complies with the U.N. sanctions against Iraq, including a ban of all weapons sales.
Once again, the ministry spokesman had to specify that France had sold no military equipment to Iraq since the summer of 1990 and that it was furthermore impossible for Roland 2s to have been manufactured in 2002, given the fact that they were not manufactured after 1993. This information had in fact been communicated to the author of the article, who made very limited use of it.
Although the author of that article did call the embassy and included our denial in his article, he nevertheless referred to this supposed "scandal" three times in the following days. The fact that the Foreign Ministry's spokesman issued a categorical denial did not dissuade The Washington Times.
A "military expert" asked by MSNBC about the coalition's failure to discover banned weapons insinuated that "weapons could well have been discovered" and that they "could very well be French or Russian," which would have led the administration not to mention them "out of concern for easing tensions."
"The passport story had them really hot," a senior U.S. official told CNN. "They delivered passionate, heated and repeated denials that any such thing was occurring."
The official added there was no evidence of the French issuing such passports, and noted the White House never said there was any such evidence.
But, CNN reported, White House press secretary Ari Fleischer suggested reporters would be better served asking the French whether they provided passports to Iraqi officials on the same day the Washington Times story appeared.
At that time, other senior officials privately suggested the story was based on one uncorroborated tip received by U.S. intelligence agencies, and that the information was being investigated but not being treated as true or even necessarily credible.
"That one put them over the top," this official said. Nevertheless, this official and the others denied any coordinated effort to smear the French. "Do we have reason to be mad? We think we do," the senior official told CNN, adding that the new French letter had not yet been received at the White House, but that there had been "official communications" suggesting it would be coming as early as today.
He suggested that any claim of an organized campaign against France "is ridiculous" and said the letter is the result of "a sense of resentment" by some French officials that U.S. officials have talked of negative ramifications for U.S.-French relations because of the disagreements over Iraq.
When asked by CNN about the French complaint Deputy White House press secretary Scott McClellan, quoted Secretary of State Colin Powell as saying: "the United States and France have been in marriage counseling for 200 years."
McClellan added that the United States and France are allies and that, while differences persist, "We are looking to the future."
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