Michael Settle in The Herald (UK) amuses with Chirac finding pro-US stances hard to stomach:
Amid the mocha coffee and the petits four, Jacques Chirac lost the argument. Shortly afterwards at his press conference, he lost his temper too.
Sources keeping a delicate diplomatic distance in the grand European Council dining room reported that Monsieur le President was steadily being forced into a corner.
Kofi Annan, the UN secretary-general, fully aware that the international body's future is on the line, began by appealing to the 15 EU leaders to act together. The international community, he said, demanded that their leaders unite around a common line.
He also told it to the heads of government straight: that if Saddam Hussein continued with his defiance, then the security council would have no option but to face up to its responsibilities - confront the Baghdad regime with military force.
At Mr Annan's hawkish stance, Mr Chirac stood up and, with Gallic passion, began a defence of the French position.
Flinging his arms up and down, he declared that war was a terrible thing and that thousands of innocent people would lose their lives in a second Gulf war. "It is a question of life and death," he said.
It was suggested that, at this point, the most dramatic moment of the evening occurred. Silvio Berlusconi, the diminutive Italian premier, eyeballed Mr Chirac and insisted: "I'm just as concerned about life and death as you are."Follow the link for all the rest, but Jackanapes got his bottom paddled big time. My favorite line was from Tony Blair:
He asked the French president to consider what happened to innocent people in Bali and in New York's twin towers.
Then, the normally mild-mannered Bertie Ahern, the taoiseach, interjected and pointed out that the only person getting away with defying the will of the international community was Saddam.
He added that the weapons inspectors could not go on indefinitely.
Looking at his colleagues one by one, he told them bluntly: "There is no intelligence agency of any government around this table that does not know that the government of Iraq has weapons of mass destruction."So what's a corrupt old hack to do? Why kick up a hissy fit of course! He held a press conference where he whined about the Eastern European countries supporting the USA.
In a few well chosen mal mots, the French premier let rip, saying: "They missed a great opportunity to shut up."And aside from this buffoon, the French foreign minister, Dominique Galouzeau de Villepin thinks he's the successor to Napoleon. And check this out:
He went on in his best professorial tone: "These countries have not been very well-behaved". They had acted "recklessly" by not appreciating the "danger of aligning themselves too rapidly with the American position".
"There is not a day that goes by without me inhaling the perfume of the discreet violet” - the flower that symbolised loyalty to Napoleon.
I know it's the French, but this exceeds even my expectations. Someone buy them a bottle of plonk and tell 'em we'll give 'em a call if we feel the need for a good whine!
