Poland now using missiles to shoot itself in the foot
Chris Wells briskly browses through what the world's English-language press is saying about Poland
In a cringe-making story that turned up in far too many newspapers for comfort this week, Poland once again came up smelling of anything but roses. Here's a recap of how this sorry mess unfolded, courtesy of The Washington Post.
Initially, a Polish Defense Ministry spokesman told Reuters that Polish troops had found four French-built "Roland 3" anti-aircraft missiles near the region of Hilla in southern Iraq and that they had been made in 2003. As there has been a comprehensive embargo on arms sales to Iraq since 1990, perhaps unsurprisingly then, a French Foreign Ministry spokeswoman strongly rejected the claim that these had been built and delivered, just before the war started.
By the following day, the Post's headline had changed to "Poland: French Missile Report Was Wrong". French President Jacques Chirac had swiftly denied that France sold weapons to Iraq in violation of the embargo, saying that the claims "are as false today as they were yesterday." This article went on to state that France had stopped producing these missiles in 1993, while Chirac was quoted as saying they hadn't been made for 15 years (?).
As luck would have it, this episode took place during the recent EU summit in Rome, so Chirac was able to have a couple of "frank, firm but friendly" chats with Polish Prime Minister Leszek Miller and the former duly accepted the latter's explanation. By the next day, the headline read, "Poland apologizes for French Missiles Report", with this article carrying quotations that the matter had been cleared up. Polish Foreign Minister Włodzimierz Cimoszewicz popped his head above the parapet just long enough to say that the issue was now behind both countries.
As it turns out, the missiles were in fact sold during the 70s and 80s, when Western governments considered Saddam Hussian to be the good guy and both the U.S. and U.K. were happy to let him have what he wanted. However, it would be naive to imagine that the right-wing American media didn't at least get some mileage from a situation caused, as we are led to believe, by Polish soldiers on the ground. The slanted American publication Newsmax, for example, lost no time in linking the reports to a belligerent argument that this was yet more evidence of France's hatred of America and used it to rehash the fact that France had been against the war because it would lose its lucrative contracts in Iraq (making money, of course, being the last thing on Bush's mind when he invaded).
As this appallingly embarrassing episode gratefully fades into the past, most Poles should be shaking their heads in bewilderment. After Poland did its best to raise its international profile this year, not to mention upsetting a few friends along the way, how this ridiculous, hopelessly inept performance makes Poland look in the eyes of the world is anyone's guess.
However, as the Polish government takes steps to ensure this doesn't happen again, there is some consolation. Unlike a lot of mistakes made during this war, not least by the U.S. and U.K. forces, for once at least no innocent civilians were killed.
