Fox's Hannity Lies-again-trys to sell France -but not US-sold Iraq weapons

[papau]

http://mediamatters.org/items/200502240010

Hannity deceptively criticized France for providing weapons to Iraq

FOX News host Sean Hannity condemned France and other "so-called allies" of America for providing weapons to Iraq prior to the U.S.-led invasion of that country in 2003. On the February 23 edition of FOX News' Hannity & Colmes, in an attempt to impugn European nations' motives for opposing the war Hannity said to guest and fellow FOX News host Oliver North: "ou were there in Iraq. You saw weapons with French labels on them." North responded affirmatively.

This attack is misleading. French companies did sell weapons to Iraq prior to the 1990 embargo, during the Iran-Iraq War -- as did the United States and many other nations. But no credible evidence exists that French government approved weapons sales to Iraq after the United Nations Security Council imposed the arms embargo, and very little evidence exists that French companies conducted such sales in secret. President Jacques Chirac has denied that France violated the embargo.

Hannity's mention of "weapons with French labels on them" apparently referred to French Roland missiles, which "U.S. troops and journalists have seen ... at some weapons sites," according to an October 5, 2003, Associated Press report. But the AP also noted that while Poland initially reported that the French missiles were produced in 2003, the Polish government quickly recognized that the report was "incorrect." France stopped exporting Roland missiles in 1986 and stopped producing them completely in 1993, according to the French Foreign Ministry.

International human rights organization Amnesty International has documented that both French and U.S. companies supplied weapons technology to Iraq prior to the 1991 Gulf War:<snip>

[Zuni]

1. Both France and the US are guilty

of feeding this beast

[JohnnyRingo]

2. Hannity has the journalistic ethics of a Klan newsletter editor.

I can't even call him a conservative.

His sole purpose is the elimination of the Democratic party and unwavering support for the current administration.(period)