FRANCE TO START 'ETHICS' COMMITTEE FOR DIPLOMATS

PARIS October 27, 2005 (AFP) - France said Thursday it would establish an "ethics committee" for its diplomats following the launch of criminal investigations against two former ambassadors [scil., Messrs. Jean-Bernard Mérimée and Serge Boidevaix] suspected of having benefited from alleged corruption of the UN oil-for-food programme for Iraq.

Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy wrote in the Liberation newspaper that the body was being created "to protect the integrity and the reputation of the diplomatic and consular agents."

It would, he said, ensure that ministry staff knew their obligations, both on-duty and off and after leaving the service, so that Paris could "avoid in the future any dysfunction contrary to the spirit of public service."

This committee has not been established because integrity and reputations need protecting. It has been established because of glaring "dysfunctions contrary to the spirit of public service" in the Ministère des Affaires étrangères. Integrity cannot be protected where it is wholly absent. Disgraced reputations should not be protected. M. Douste-Blazy's committee must first get busy infusing French diplomats with what they lack, the professional ethics and judgment necessary to their commissions.

The French foreign ministry has sought to distance itself from the two, saying it had nothing to do with their "private activities" -- despite Boidevaux telling Le Monde that he had been in "constant touch" with the ministry, which he said was fully aware of his Iraqi activities.

We have commented elsewhere on the sudden evaporation of French diplomats' integrity outside of the protective compass of the Quai d'Orsay.

The AFP then goes on to the obligatory "dark America" exculpation of French graft:

According to unclassified US State Department documents, obtained and reported upon by CNN in February, the US government "knew about, and even condoned" Iraqi oil sales outside the programme to Turkey and Jordan that generated billions of dollars for Saddam's regime.

Ah, it seems the AFP missed the findings on public record:

Russia, China and France sabotaged UN Security Council efforts to crack down on Saddam Hussein's manipulation of the oil-for-food programme, the Volcker report says.

They worked effectively to assist the Iraq dictatorship, which, according to numerous Iraqi witnesses, had decided to give contract preferences to "companies from countries perceived as sympathetic to the lifting of [UN] sanctions, most prominently some members of the Security Council."

The report names China, Russia and France as the main obstacles to a more effective system. Britain and the US repeatedly proposed changes, only to be blocked by the pro-Iraqi trio.

[Emphases added.]

Whatever the U.S. government knew or didn't know, the beneficiaries here were French functionaries not American. So if AFP-via-CNN is to be believed, we have the curious situation where the American government knew and condoned the corruption in the oil-for-food program yet derived no benefit and the French government hadn't a clue while French nationals criminally benefited. (Pause.) Well, the ineptitude of the French government is believable.

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