Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company  
The New York Times
April 24, 2003, Thursday, Late Edition - Final
SECTION: Section A; Page 20; Column 3; Foreign Desk

LENGTH: 986 words

HEADLINE: AFTEREFFECTS: RETALIATION;
U.S., Angry at French Stance on War, Considers Punishment

BYLINE:  By ELISABETH BUMILLER

DATELINE: WASHINGTON, April 23

BODY:
The Bush administration is pursuing steps to punish France for opposing the United States on the war in Iraq, including the possibility of limiting French participation in American-sponsored meetings with European allies, senior officials said today.

The measures were discussed at a White House meeting on Monday of senior officials led by Stephen J. Hadley, the deputy national security adviser. Marc Grossman, the under secretary of state for political affairs, also attended, as did I. Lewis Libby and Eric Edelman, two influential hawks on the staff of Vice President Dick Cheney. Mr. Libby and Mr. Edelman were described by some administration officials as driving forces within the group.

The anger at France is so deeply felt within the administration that even Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, in an interview on Tuesday, warned that the country would be punished for taking on the United States. Asked on "The Charlie Rose Show" on PBS if France would suffer consequences, Mr. Powell bluntly replied, "Yes."

Mr. Powell did not specify the consequences, nor did any Bush administration official making public comments today. But speaking anonymously, one official said the group that met on Monday was considering shifting decisions asked of NATO to the organization's Defense Planning Council, which does not include France, and bypassing the North Atlantic Council, NATO's governing body, of which France is a member. In February, the administration successfully got the Defense Planning Council to agree to an American request to make plans for Turkey's defense, effectively sidelining French objections.

Another administration official took pains to point out that when President Bush attends an international economic summit meeting in Evian in the French Alps later this spring, he will stay at a hotel across the border in Switzerland.

"We are not forcing anyone to spend the night in France," a senior French diplomat responded today. The diplomat then pointedly said that Switzerland had been even more opposed than the French president, Jacques Chirac, to the American-led invasion of Iraq.

"They didn't even allow overflight rights for American planes," the diplomat said. "It amazes me that he doesn't realize the Swiss government was extremely hostile to war."

Administration officials said they were also considering downgrading the status of France at international conferences where the nation was once considered a major player, specifically by adding Spain and Italy to an annual meeting of envoys that now includes only the United States, Britain, Germany and France. "We want to find places where France now has special privileges and ask whether it's smart to continue those," one American official said.

The White House's confrontational strategy, administration officials said, is intended to try to bludgeon France into more acquiescent behavior, or at least to make it clear that the Bush administration will now only cooperate with France when it is in the interest of the United States.

"It's a concern to see that some people in the administration are still fighting a war against France that is completely irrelevant," the French diplomat said. When asked to react to the comments of Mr. Powell, who has been publicly conciliatory to France but privately smoldering, the diplomat sighed and said, "Wow."

Publicly, administration officials tried to play down the emotions today. Richard A. Boucher, the State Department spokesman, said that Mr. Powell had taken a call today from his French counterpart, Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin, and that the two had spoken in part about Mr. Powell's blunt "yes" on the Charlie Rose program.

"They kind of laughed about some of the exaggerated press reporting of what 'yes' means," Mr. Boucher said. "I think some of the papers have described 'yes' as 'war.' "

But Mr. Boucher did not back off on the essential position that France must be made to pay for its actions.

"There's obviously an effect on the relationship, on how we look at things, how we evaluate things, and how we look at things we might want to do in going forward," Mr. Boucher told reporters, adding that the consequences for France would be more than "philosophical."

Administration officials said they were annoyed but not surprised that the French this week proposed suspending -- but not lifting -- penalties against Iraq that had been imposed on Saddam Hussein's government. On Tuesday at the United Nations, the French said they were willing to agree to immediately suspend the penalties, but not to lift them permanently until they could verify that Iraq had disarmed.

In effect, the French position puts more pressure on American-led military teams to find biological and chemical weapons in Iraq, and would require that a United Nations weapons inspections team return to Iraq to validate any finding.

The White House is adamantly opposed to the return of United Nations weapons inspectors to Iraq, at least for the immediate future, because officials say they would get in the way of the military teams there now. The Bush administration is insisting that the penalties, an economic hardship on Iraqis, be lifted immediately.

Bush administration officials say the original reasons that the United Nations imposed the penalties -- to try to force Mr. Hussein to give up his unconventional weapons -- have now disappeared, making them irrelevant. The French argue that the weapons could still be there, in enemy hands, and so still pose a potential threat. "Where are they?" the French diplomat said. "And who controls them?"

Therefore, the French argument goes, the penalties should not be lifted until the weapons are found and verified by a United Nations inspection team. The French say that will help convince skeptical Arabs that the United States did not plant the weapons in Iraq.
 

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GRAPHIC: Photo: Condoleezza Rice, the national security adviser, and Secretary of State Colin L. Powell during a meeting at the White House yesterday. (Doug Mills/The New York Times)      

LOAD-DATE: April 24, 2003