"The French decision, which was first reported today in the Paris daily Le Monde, has thrown U.N. military planning into disarray on the eve of a major international meeting this afternoon of potential contributors to a U.N. force." http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/17/AR2006081700 813.html?sub=new France Throws U.N Peacekeeping Plans Into Disarray By Colum Lynch, Washington Post Staff Writer, 17 August 2006 Chirac Rebuffs Pleas to Make Major Contribution to Mission UNITED NATIONS - France has rebuffed U.N. pleas to make a major contribution to a peacekeeping mission in southern Lebanon, setting back international efforts to send a credible military force to the region to police a cease-fire between Israel and Hezbollah, according to U.N. and French officials. French President Jacques Chirac instead committed Thursday to send a relatively small military engineering company of 200 soldiers to serve in a reinforced U.N. peacekeeping mission that is expected to grow to 15,000 strong and that will help Lebanon police a demilitarized zone in southern Lebanon. He also said that a force of 1,700 French troops and crew stationed in ships off the coast of Lebanon could be sent in to help the U.N. force during a crisis. The French decision, which was first reported today in the Paris daily Le Monde, has thrown U.N. military planning into disarray on the eve of a major international meeting this afternoon of potential contributors to a U.N. force. It also seriously complicates U.N. efforts to get a vanguard force of peacekeepers from powerful European countries within the next two weeks. Senior U.N. peacekeeping officials said they had hoped that a commitment to have French troops form the "backbone" of the U.N. peacekeeping mission would spur other countries to join. U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan called Chirac today to see if he would change his mind. Following the meeting, Chirac's office released a statement indicating he had not yielded. He said that France would only double its contribution to the U.N. force, which is headed by a French general, and hoped to continue commanding the mission. The U.N.'s deputy Secretary General Mark Malloch Brown is scheduled Thursday afternoon to brief ambassadors from countries considering sending troops to Lebanon on the forces' "concept of operations," according to a U.N. official. U.N. officials hoped the meeting would provide "firm commitments" to participate. The U.N. plan, described by senior U.N. officials earlier this week, calls for the deployment of a U.N. rapid reaction force of up to 3,500 troops, primarily drawn from Europe and Turkey, within the next two weeks. They would join a force of 2,000 U.N. peacekeepers, including 200 French troops, helping the Lebanese army take control of a demilitarized zone in southern Lebanon. During the following months, an additional 9,500 U.N. peacekeepers recruited from Europe, Asia, Africa and Latin America would be sent to southern Lebanon. France did little to dampen expectations that it would play a far more ambitious peacekeeping role as it joined the United States in fashioning agreement on a resolution authorizing the force. At a critical stage in talks, President Chirac broke with the United States and backed Lebanese demands that the new force be placed under the command of the United Nations. The United State ultimately yielded to the French position. But senior military officials from France, Italy and other countries considering sending troops expressed unease at the prospect of serving under U.N. command. The commander of Italian forces abroad, Gen. Fabrizio Castagnetti, expressed skepticism about the United Nations's capacity to manage such a complicated operation. He was quoted earlier this week by the Italian daily Corriere della Sera as saying that the United Nation's "elephantine bureaucracy" made it difficult for military commanders on the ground to make critical decision without getting approval from U.N. headquarters in New York. Israel's ambassador to the United Nations, Dan Gillerman, held out hope that France would reconsider. "I'm not sure France has made up its mind," Gillerman said in an interview. "There were a lot of expectations the French would actually lead this thing and a lot of countries are waiting to see what France does." Gillerman said that the withdrawal of Israeli troops from Lebanon is "moving along" but that the final decision to return to Israel will "obviously depend very much on the international force being deployed." Annan provided Israeli's Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni Wednesday with assurances that the U.N. force would be "robust, effective" and have a "clear mandate," Gillerman said. France's Defense Minister Michèle Alliot-Marie was scheduled on Wednesday in a televised address to announce France's decision to commit to a modest contribution to U.N. force and to begin talks with other European officials about the possibility of setting up a European rapid reaction force. But U.N. officials pleaded with France to hold back on the announcement, fearing it would dissuade other countries from agreeing to join the mission. France has expressed concern that Hezbollah fighters are not prepared to disarm and may turn their guns on French troops. In 1983, Islamic militants killed 58 French paratroopers in bomb attacks in Beirut. A French military source told Le Monde that the decision was also prompted by the government's anxiety over serving under U.N. command, citing the loss of some 84 French troops in the U.N. mission in the early 1990s in Bosnia and the seizure of French peacekeepers of hostages. The source also cited "fears of reprisals from Syria or Iran." France has been on a confrontation course with Syria and Iran for more than two years. Chirac and President Bush have led U.N. efforts to force Syria to withdraw from Lebanon. France is also joining the United States, Britain and Germany in threatening sanctions against Iran for ignoring international calls to halt its uranium enrichment.
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