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Aug. 24, 2007 - When French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner paid a three-day visit to Iraq earlier this week, it seemed a potent symbol of the shift in France’s policies after President Nicolas Sarkozy took office in May. The previous government in Paris had bitterly opposed the American-led invasion in 2003. But Kouchner, a passionate activist who first gained fame as a founder of Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders) in the 1970s, has his own reasons to be interested in Iraq, some of them based on personal friendships. In an exclusive interview with NEWSWEEK’s Christopher Dickey, conducted in French and lasting almost an hour, Kouchner argued that no government can stand aloof from what is happening in Iraq right now. Even so, he cautions that no one should be deluded about what a disaster it has become. Excerpts:

NEWSWEEK: The last time I interviewed you was actually in Kosovo in 1999, when you were the United Nations representative in Pristina, and Nadia Younes was one of your colleagues. I remember she sat in on the interview. Then she went on to work for Sérgio Vieira de Mello, who headed the United Nations mission in Baghdad—until they and 20 other people were killed by a massive truck bomb in August 2003. 
Bernard Kouchner: Yes, that’s right. You know, I went to lay a wreath in Baghdad. I traveled there Aug. 19 on purpose because it was the fourth anniversary of the death of Nadia and Sergio and the others. I was very moved, and my counterpart, the Iraqi minister of foreign affairs, was there and he laid a wreath as well, which was kind. In fact he did it for me because he had never—no Iraqi official had ever—made an appearance in front of the monument that’s there. Never.

Never? Why?
Because they don’t care about the United Nations. For them these are political matters, and political matters are a history of settling scores among the big families and the big parties [of Iraq]. That’s what it’s like there. They’ve had 6,000 years of violence. So, finally, the daily death toll in Baghdad and in the country doesn’t interest them so much. And if you don’t understand that, you don’t understand anything. That’s one of the mistakes the Americans made. They understood nothing about what has happened in the country over such a long period of time.

You’ve had a lot of contact with Kurdish leaders in the past. Do they surprise you now?
They’re in Baghdad, and that’s really something. These are people I’ve known for 30 years, who were in the mountains fighting for independence, and now they’re defending unity as Iraqi nationalists. That’s amazing. It’s very promising and at the same time stunning. There are amazing things going on: anything and everything can happen there. But let’s not make a mistake. It’s also true that anything and everything is at stake there, even for our children and grandchildren.

How’s that?
Because in this place called Iraq everything comes together, all the problems of the world: the violence; murder as a way of doing politics; the clash of religions, the confrontation of communities that are theoretically allied and who talk to each other but, in reality, are prolonging an ancient struggle for dominance. All of that is mixed with the question of oil—the second largest reserves in the world. Then you have the influence of neighboring countries who, through militias, money and arms, are able to manipulate the situation in Iraq. So, it can blow up still more than it has. I think this is the crucible for even worse regional and global violence. It’s the globalization of terror. Everybody is there, and not only Al Qaeda. There’s a contagion. The borders are impossible to patrol, they’re porous, so there’s an influence on neighboring countries. One of those, Iran, wants to become a nuclear power. All that—in this place.

OK, but what does France do about it?
Ah, that’s something else. What could have been done, well, perhaps best not to talk about it, but how not to talk about it? I wasn’t in favor of the war, what I said was “neither the war, nor Saddam.” Well, there was the period of liberation, the battle waged by the Americans and the allies that lasted three weeks, and which was well done. That’s not what destroyed Baghdad, not at all. And then there was the period of mistakes, which has lasted four years. It’s bad. All the mistakes possible were made.

When you went to Iraq, did you coordinate with the Americans?
Not at all.

You told them you were going, obviously.
The night before, I said to call [Secretary of State] Condoleezza Rice. Maybe I had mentioned something to the American ambassador [to France] the night before that. But that’s all. I had said to Nicolas Sarkozy that I would go, and I gave him a heads up while he was in the United States. I asked him, “Have you talked about Iraq with President [George W.] Bush?” He called me back and told me about their conversation and said they hadn’t broached the problem of Iraq … We didn’t go through the Americans; we didn’t go at the request of the Americans.

But doesn’t this trip look like a signal to the Americans of a change in French attitudes and policy?
Yes, it’s a strong signal—for them. But I wasn’t looking to make a strong signal for them. The Americans know that in this government team, President Sarkozy and I are recognized as friends of the United States. When we don’t agree—whether about Lebanon or Kosovo or the Middle East—we tell them! So, I didn’t have to ask permission from the Americans, but I’d be very happy if we could work together, not only the United States and France, but the United States and Europe, I hope.

Your bottom line seems to be that the international community—the European Union, the United Nations—should be more involved in Iraq. And then?
That’s the thing. We wanted to listen to everyone, we heard everyone. The bottom line wasn’t very optimistic. No, truly not. There are two sorts of people in Iraq: those who are realists and who tell you things are going badly. And then those who are out of touch with reality, who live in the Green Zone and say that everything’s fine, everything will work out … We listened to them, and those who say everything’s fine, it’s not worth talking to them! They’ve got the world record for refugees, for displaced people, for violence, for murders—and everything’s fine! It’s all the fault of someone else. The others, what do they say? That it’s an extremely profound crisis and if they don’t get out of it soon, that’s going to be very bad indeed.

So, again, what do you do about it? Would France send troops?
There’s no question, not for one second, of replacing American soldiers with French soldiers. No way.

And French training for Iraqis?
We’ll see. Maybe. We’ve already done that, training judges and lawyers.

How about training Iraqi soldiers and police?
Maybe … The [Iraqi] Army is not ready now. The police are completely ineffectual and corrupt. You first have to work with the American soldiers [to bring security]. I’m certainly not asking them to leave immediately. In fact, no one is asking that they leave immediately. No one said that to me. Those who talk about the American occupation, if you say to them, “Do you want them to leave right now,” they tell you, “Oh, I didn’t say that!” They don’t want it. So the idea is to back up [the Americans]. The role of the international community has to be developed.

What else?
Many people believe the prime minister [Nuri al-Maliki] ought to be changed. I don’t know if that will go through, though, because it seems President Bush is attached to Mr. Maliki. But the government is not functioning.

You think there’s a strong sentiment in Iraq that Maliki should go.
Yes. I just had Condoleezza on the phone 10 or 15 minutes ago, and I told her, “Listen, he’s got to be replaced.” There’s a lot of support for, for instance, Adel Abdul Mahdi [one of the vice presidents] who’s an impressive fellow, and not only because he studied in France. He’s solid. Of the people who are available, he’s widely seen as the one that ought to have the job.

In the 1980s you promoted the idea that the international community has a humanitarian duty to intervene in countries where tyrants brutalize their people. That was one reason given for the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. What do you think now?
The crisis in Iraq is, as I said, a crisis that threatens all of us. Yes, we invented “the right to interfere” and sometimes it’s been applied well: in Kosovo it worked well, I think, and in Sierra Leone and Cambodia, but there, in Iraq, it was applied horribly.

You’ve shared all these ideas with the Americans about the role you think Europe and the U.N. can play?
Yes. I talked about it with Condoleezza, and I am going to see her in a few days to talk some more. We also have to be multiplying the number of visits others are making to Iraq, to emphasize the interest of the Europeans, to get them to go to Baghdad and get involved. I was welcomed—and, yes, I was the first and they know me well—but I was welcomed enthusiastically by everyone in Iraq because they felt that they were being dealt with respectfully, and not as if they had the plague because they worked with the Americans. The more European ministers and delegations we get in there the better.