Ten Years Ago: Freedom Fries

I failed to note an anniversary last week. On March 11, 2003, Congressman Walter B. Jones and Congressman Bob Ney announced that henceforth menu items in the Congressional cafeteria would be renamed: "French Fries" would henceforth be listed as "Freedom Fries," and "French Toast" would be renamed "Freedom Toast."

This episode of international silliness started because France refused to join the United States in the invasion of Iraq.

Quickly forgotten by most Americans was that on September 12, 2001, NATO (including France) invoked Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty, declaring that if it was shown that the September 11 attack was coordinated from abroad, the Alliance viewed the attack on the United States as an attack on all members.

Early on in the effort to retaliate against Afghanistan, European members of NATO offered to contribute more military forces than the United States was willing to accept.

The Bush Administration sought special assistance from French Intelligence sources. France had by far the most complete intelligence in the Western world on Islamic extremism. They willingly shared this information with the United States. In fact, it is fair to say that French intelligence was essential to the early progress of the investigation.

When the United States turned its attention from Afghanistan to Iraq, France was not the only NATO member unwilling to support the invasion of Iraq. Turkey also refused to allow US forces to invade Iraq across the Turkish-Iraqi border.

Both Turkey and France were quite certain that Iraq had nothing to do the 9/11 attack on the US, and were equally certain that Saddam Hussein had not collaborated with Al-Qaida.

When asked much later about the "Freedom Fries" episode, Congressman Jones admitted he "wished it had never happened."