France’s Hollande: U.S. Response to 9/11 Expanded, Not Eliminated, Terrorist Threat

PRESS RELEASE

France’s Hollande: U.S. Response to 9/11 Expanded, Not Eliminated, Terrorist Threat

Sept. 12, 2016 (EIRNS)—On the 15th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in the United States, French President Francois Hollande asserted that the Bush Administration’s response to that event—the invasion of Iraq—led to the expansion of the terrorist threat, rather than its eradication. France has suffered the consequences of the U.S. action.

France’s Agence France Presse news service reported that Hollande wrote on his Facebook page that,

"[T]he response that the American administration gave to these attacks... far from eradicating the threat, expanded it over a wider area; namely, to Iraq. And even though France, through [ex-president] Jacques Chirac, rightly refused to join the intervention [in Iraq], which it condemned, it has nonetheless been a victim of the consequences of the chaos it caused."

Several other French analysts quoted by AFP had the same message: that Bush’s "shock and awe" campaign led to the expansion of the Islamic State, jihadis, etc.

Also speaking yesterday, French Prime Minister Manuel Valls warned that the country is under a continuous terrorist threat, adding that as many as 15,000 people are in the process of being radicalized, and 1,350 are under direct investigation, The Independent reported. "Every day, attacks are foiled ... [including] as we speak," he stated. Interviewed on Europe 1 radio yesterday, Valls said that the terror threat "is at a maximum, and we are a target... There will be new attacks; there will be innocent victims," adding that two attacks were foiled in the past two weeks, and that every day, "[I]ntelligence services and police, thwart attacks, dismantle networks, track terrorists." Currently, there are 700 French jihadists and residents fighting in Iraq and Syria, he said, including 275 women and "dozens of children."