Poles Backtrack On Missile Claims

The Polish government is now retracting the claim that French-made Roland missiles found in Iraq had been manufactured in 2003.

After a protest from French President Jacques Chirac, Poland said Saturday it had been mistaken in reporting that its troops found new French-made anti-aircraft missiles in central Iraq.

Chirico swiftly denied selling Iraq weapons in violation of the U.N. weapons embargo imposed against Saddam Hussein’s regime in 1990. The claims, he said, "are as false today as they were yesterday."

An aide to the Polish prime minister said an initial report that the Roland missiles found by Polish troops days ago were produced in 2003 was incorrect. France said it stopped producing any type of Roland missile in 1993.

Prime Minister Leszek Miller met with Chirac twice to explain the mistake, said the aide, Tadeusz Iwinski. The two leaders were in Rome on Saturday for a European Union summit.

So, it appears that the Poles got things wrong, and the Roland missiles found in Iraq had been manufactured at some time before 1993 when production of the Roland missile system ended.

Unfortunately, as many things as there are to criticize the French about, this isn’t one of them.

13 thoughts on “Poles Backtrack On Missile Claims

  1. Wow, that’s as close as Jay Reding has ever come to admitting he was wrong, even though he is wrong multiple times every day.

  2. Note that Justin responded with a link that I could verify via two credible sources. Note how you continue to make arguments that are not only unsubstantiated but have already been proven incorrect. Note which technique is effective and academic, and which is not.

  3. Jay,

    Trolls don’t have sources or facts. They just engage in name calling, think themselves clever, and pat themselves on the back.

  4. I just read a discussion between some friends of mine and it was mentioned that an aquintance who is an officer in the marine corp has actually been to SAM sites and taken pictures of missles with obvious French markings and that there were crates and documents that indicated that 2002 as the ship date. My frind has seen the pictures, but I have not. So I cannot at this point confirm or deny that that report is true. I plan to attempt finding out of that claim is true. Because if there is damage control going on for France, I do believe people should be aware of what is really going on.

    The person that brought this to my attention is a professional scientist and not someone who flys off the handle and cries conspiracy at the drop of a hat. So his credibility tells me the subject of France’s possibly illegal actions is not yet closed and sealed.

    Yeah, I know I didn’t give a link to this conversation, but the conversation was private, if I do find out anything I will post it.

  5. my grandmother told me that bin Laden and Georges W Bush were the same person. this conversation was private. If I do find anything more vague and infamous, I’ll post it!

  6. http://www.arabnews.com/?page=7&section=0&article=33181&d=7&m=10&y=2003

    I have an article for the Laurel and Hardy of the Blogoshere.

    Now, back to the subject, I simply listed another in a long list of reports from our servicemen and women that conflict with media reports. Just like the negative reports on what is happening in Iraq on reconstruction efforts, this also contradicts what the media reports.

    It deserves to be checked out, not dismissed. Which I have already written to the people invovled and asked for confirmation. If they send confirmation then it changes from he said, she said to something more. If I do not recieve confirmation then it goes into the rumor barrel.

    Now what has the Laurel and Hardy team done today to other than make jokes? Have you attempted to confirm or disprove any reports? Or for some reason out of the wide blue should just YOUR word be enough? I didn’t think so.

    Running down “the rest of the story” that the media ignores is what the Blogoshere is good at. So is this the rest of the story or just a rumor? Until it is checked out who knows.

  7. so please Emma, until it is checked out: shut up!
    Don’t you know that there’s always someone to take rumors as facts, and not read the truth a few weeks later.
    This fact that “France sold missiles to Irak in 2002” is nothing more than propaganda. So please, if you have no evidence, just don’t say it. Unless you admit you just want to hurt the reputation of France, whatever the means you’re willing to use, but this is another story…

    and one last thing: I may be laurel or hardy, or any kind of dumb guy, but your link is broken
    😉

  8. Vincent…I have no reason to doubt the people behind this story (A marine and a chemist)…So as far as I am concerned it is true until proven false. I just feel that to be fair I should also attempt to confirm it from another source. So I am waiting for pictures.

    We’ve been hearing similar reports from several returning military sources about what has been found in Iraq that is never reported in the media. I’d say first hand witnesses are pretty solid, and if they thought to take photographs…..maybe the media needs a wake up call and to get out of their air conditioned hotel rooms in Baghdad to track this stuff down.

    So as far as France is concerned, France’s behavior will speak for it’self. As far as I’ve seen, France is the only one responsible for the state of it’s reputation.

    as far as the link? maybe I’ll repost it another time.

  9. too bad you can read, but not understand what it means:
    I wrote:
    “So please, if you have no evidence, just don’t say it. Unless you admit you just want to hurt the reputation of France”

    You answered:
    “it is true until proven false” and
    “As far as I’ve seen, France is the only one responsible for the state of it’s reputation.”

    According to universal democratic standards, every individual (but nations as well) is innocent until proven guilty. Thus, any word demolishing a reputation grounded on un-proven facts is just propaganda. I assume you just don’t care about being democratic or not. Good.

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