Israel TV reported that there were also Chinese and American weapons found.

Surpise! Those Peace loving French. So aware of what war has done to their coutry and people the last century. So noble in their calls for a diplomatic solution, so that another group of people would not have to face what they have. Such scumbags....

This makes sense. The French have no use for weapons, since we always fight their wars for them.

I knew that France had been one of Iraq's top three weapon suppliers - this knowledge, and the knowledge how they had been tied into Iraq's oil production had led me to great cynicism of the French position.

French weapons... anyone suprised by this?

I thought the report said that some of the weapons that the American soldier was showing the embedded reporter came from Jordan and France. I'm not so sure he said this was necessairly a large amount of weapons, perhaps enough for a platoon.

The French were always dirty bastards.

Jac Chriac was mayor of a town during german occupation.

He cuddled up with the germans then, as now.

He was responsible for giving housing to german ss. The houses that belong to the jews.

france didn't fight the germans, they embraced them.

you can read hitlers testament here:
http://abbc.com/historia/hitler/testam/eng/testa.htm

I don't really care for the site that hosts this, but it's intresting to hear what hitler said about the french

I've also seen reports of TOW missiles being found. Now, this is troubling because Raytheon develops the "TOW" missile. However, I've found reports of knockoffs being made in Iran, as well. Keep in mind also that we usually sell most anything to the French - who knows where it goes after that. But... interesting.

The fact is that the arms market is a shady realm where only the truely ballsy dare to tread. Small arms, morters and artillery shells are no big deal because everybody sells that stuff. It's the unusual stuff that we are looking for.

OT
Note to the individual manning the CBS live webcam: please make sure you're out of the frame before rooting around in your nose. It's remarkably unprofessional.

We now return you to your regularly-scheduled French frying festival.

"Unusual" French weapons. Like exploding pastries or .50m calibre wine corks. : )

You should all note that my wife is french, and even she hates the french!!

She never spoke english when I met her, now she doesn't speak french, refuses to

Quel surprise.

Quelle surprise!

Guy's don't eat it! Beat it! France is good for a great view in your rear view mirror on your way to the English Channel! Chirac is a ponce! Both my Grandpa & Pa fought in France WWI & WW2 to free the bastards. Drink Australian wine and Scotch Whiskey - they will help you get the 'Frog out of your throat!'

French weapons? Poison-dipped white flags? Prostitutes with a super-strain of syphilis? Month old baguette clubs?

These could be old stocks; the Jordanian Army had long standing links with the Iraqi Army during the war with iran. Iraq captured a large number of British-made Chieftan tanks from Iran during this, and many ended up in Jordanian Army service (the Jordanians operate a lot of British kit). Big deal. I notice the Iraqis have a predeliction for Japanese pickups and Suburbans. Does that mean you're going to boycott GM? BTW British and US NBC detection vehicles are German supplied.

Oldtimer: As for Chirac (I presume thats who you mean) being an ex-Vichy mayor; bollocks. They must have been making appointing mayor's pretty young then. Chirac was born in 1932. Do your homework before making allegations. I think you must have been confused with the late Mitterand, who was a civil servent in Vichy France. Some Frenchmen embraced Nazism, as did a lot of Europeans did at the time. There were British and Irish Blackshirt/Blueshirts who also would have lined up to be Quislings if so called upon. I think there were also American Nazi sympathizers as well. Thousands of Frenchmen though didn't side with Hitler, and gave their lives for the liberation of their country.

Wow. At 2:59pm eastern time, Baghdad is just getting pummeled, on the CBS webcam: CBS webcam

My Lord that's a lot of explosions. Sounds like they're having a thunderstorm, but according to the Weather channel there's not supposed to be any rain, and those large flashes on the horizon are suspicious, just to the left of the frame. Anyone know which direction this thing is pointed in?

I really have to laugh at all the indignation.

Why doesn't one person whining do some research into how many US arms end up in areas where they shouldn't.

2) The US government has intentionally brocken not only international, but its own arms embargoes (Reagan did with Iraq for example)

2) US firms have been cited for doing so

3) many third parties transfer arms. A massive amount of US made arms ended up illegally sold after the massive conventional disarmement following the fall of the Warsaw pact.

I think the French have been being jackasses and hypocrits over this war, but we are begining to sound like the police chief in casablanca: "I am shocked, shocked to find gambling is going on."

It is a bit absurd to criticize the capitalist side of French behavior. It's the hypocrisy that is annoying.

Hold on there Hoss. Arms are found that have not been dated yet. Reports indicated they are older. Just because arms made in a country, does not make the headline correct.

Next people will say Japan Aided Iraq because baathists are driving around paramilitaries in Toyota trucks.

Jumping to conclusions, like PFC Lynch was shot, then not shot, now shot reporting means you don't let your jingoism fly at the first flinch of something that fits preconceived perceptions.

The important question is WHEN those French weapons were sold to Iraq. I'm betting it was in the time frame from 1991 to 2003.

In the information age, guessing is news.

Okay, more on this on my website. That was two HUGE explosions sounded like right next to the CBS webcam. The cam is still up, but my G-d that was loud as hell.

If France sold any signifcant amount of arms to Iraq after 1991, that truth will emerge once the dust settles.

Meanwhile, may I express my continued annoyance at them...

AndyT- you might be right, shows that all you read on the web isn't. I'll try find the article where I read that.
As for french freedom fighters, yes, they were good, but remember they were the underground, fighting without their government help.

Still, it changes nothing in regards to the german and french involvement in the mid east.

Hitler wanted to make better ties with the mid east, he just ran out of time. he was using the french colonial ties to exploit their anti semite ways.

Read that link I posted above, it's quite interesting.
Is it genuine? Lord only knows. seems to be

two explosions extremely loud...no doubt very close to the hotel....

Andy T you're the one talking bollocks! The 'Blackshirts' were a small quasi-Nazi group formed in England in the early 30's by Leonard Moseley and were similar in size and credibility to the American Nazi Party today!

They were blown away by radical left wing groups in the UK and popular opinion well before WW2 started. The Irish Government was neutral during the war and although a number of prominent Irish politicians and public figures were pro-Nazi, there influence was negligible! The UK Royal Family has close ties with the Jordanian Royal Family and most of the Jordanian Royal Family went to school and University in England. We supplied them with arms during the 50's 60's and 70's just as the US supplied Iraq to ensure the extremist Islamic states did not destabilise the region. By the way have you noticed that all the Iraqi Police drive Chevvies!

I suppose i'll have to put real player back on this pc to see that cbs cam.

I hate the program though, always messes up my pc, and I'm no pc genius.
Too old I guess, I still remember the day we got our first Black and white tv.

I hate the surrendering, appeasing, terrorist loving frogs as much as anyone but is someone seriously saying that Jaques ChIraq was a mayor during WWII? in the 1940's, he was a mayor? Say he was 30 at the time, that would make him what, 90 now?

I'm skeptical pal. If he was that old, I don't think he'd have the energy he does now to cozy up with terrorists and genocidal African dictators.

Reagan sold arms to Iran during Iran-Iraq, which was against US law and a UN resoluton the US sponsered. War criminal?

CNN is just a bunch of sorry player-haters whom are limping from the wounds of being thrown out of Iraq by the shit-head Saddam.

This just in, CNN reports that United States adimistrators put Saddam Hussein in power.

Large amounts of French weapons ?
Like what ?

France sold weapons during the Iran-Iraq war, this is no surprise !

Also, there were italian land mines found, english weapons (made in 2000), russian, jordan, etc.

But as this is *French*, this is so shocking. Blame them, hate them.

where is the link to this story?

Many Europeans and Americans were nominally pro-nazi in the thirties, often because they were anti-socialist/communist, and simply didn't realize how criminally insane Mr Hitler was. The severe economic depression of the 1930s had a lot to do with the radical politics of that era.

Chirac was never a part of the Vichy government (for starters, he was way too young). Mitterand, a corrupt socialist hypocrite who did much economic damage to France in the 1980s, did work for Vichy as a minor bureaucrat, as has already been mentioned here.

The French blocked the US/UK in the security council partly out of fear over their eroding world influence, partly out of economic concerns for their oil contracts in Iraq, and partly because their conservative political leaders were intoxicated by the overwhelming popular support they got for their position from a normally divided population. Readers of this blog should know that Chirac is being quietly criticized in France for this. Readers should also know that many best selling products in France are manufactured here by American-owned companies. Despite appearances, and put in broad terms, France is generally pro US, has many internal problems of its own to deal with (including a large immigrant arab population), and is likely helping the coalition in unseen ways (the writer is not privy to any particularly privileged information, but is convinced that this is true).

The French media is dominated by left-leaning editors and reporters who are subsidized by a hefty annual licensing fee (almost $150 US) levied on every television receiver in the country. Their views seldom reflect a balanced representation of French public opinion.

From a Euro-American perspective, probably the best way to view Saddam is as a violent, ruthless mafia/tribal leader who has treated Iraq as his own private Chicago for thirty years. His sons Uday and Qusay may be even dangerous, both personally and politically, than he is. Because of media bias, many French aren't fully aware of this. However, polls indicate that a majority of the French people do desire a US victory now that the war has begun.

Concerns about the diplomatic ineptitudes, on both sides of the Atlantic, that led up to the war are probably legitimate, as are fears about Iraq serving as a precedent for further military action in the Middle East.

Likewise, the UN failed in enforcing its own resolutions.

Regarding the CBS Baghdad webcam, most of the "thunder" noise one hears is caused by the wind beating against the microphone. However, explosions, artillery, jet fighter overflights, chanting, and machine gun fire are regularly audible. It's surreal, fascinating, morbid.

I appreciate your neutral and documented comment, 'General Patton'.

From someone who seems to be from Switzerland, that is not surprising.

About the "war against terror", let me had that since the 1995 bombings in Paris and the hijacking of the Alger-Paris flight (planned to be crashed on Paris), the French police has done some great things.

Among them avoiding the 9/11 attack against the US embassy in Paris (which did not alert the US about the ongoing threat), and giving to the UK tips about the ricin terror cell (cnn article here).

I hope that all these efforts won't be ruined by Bush's reckless foreign policy...

Still I do not agree with the French oil contracts affair: these contracts could only be applied if the UN sanctions were lifted, something that could not happen as US would veto such a resolution.
To get these oil contracts running, the only solution would have been to back the US war stance...

No doubt in my mind those French weapons were manufactured and delivered post 1991.

It's probably best to wait for verfication before assuming that any signficant quantity of Iraqi weapons came from France after 1991 (discounting corrupt, private smuggling for personal gain).

Street-level anti-French propaganda in the US is generally as inaccurate and one-dimensional as the anti-American propaganda heard here.

Overall, France has done an excellent job controlling internal terrorism. Most americans are unaware of the substantial immigrant arab populations present in the suburbs ringing Paris and in the south (Marseilles, for example): They are controversial here, often young, unemployed, on the dole, uneducated, marginalized and potentially volatile. For years French firemen have been reluctant to enter certain arab neighborhoods, for fear of being confused with the police and fired on.

No doubt in my mind those French weapons were manufactured and delivered post 1991.

No doubt at all, eh? When this story turns out to be like Pvt. Lynch's 4 bullet wounds and stab wounds--fictional agitprop--will you please consider having some facts before your conclusion?

Cockney Rebel: I never said the British Blackshirts and Irish Blueshirts had any kind of mass appeal. I doubt Quisling had any real support in Norway. But if Germany had succeeded with Operation Sealion, I have no doubt these characters, along with nobodies from the main political parties would have stepped up to the plate.

Besides the French Underground, there was also the Free French Forces, under the command of De Gaulle, and formed from Frenchmen who had escaped France, and from "turned" Vichy colonial troops.

Ireland wasn't so much neutral, as sitting on the fence. They were one of the few countries that sent a letter of sympathy to Germany upon Hitler's death.

Cockney Rebel: Oswald Moseley