The Great French-American Alliance.

On this 4th of July, it seems that the great alliance between France and the United States that helped give birth to this great nation 230 years ago is actually still very much alive today - 2 years after the (infamous) public quarrel over Iraq. There are several positive points to make:
The Tour de France of course is in people's minds these days with American Lance Armstrong making his way for a possible seventh successive victory.... but, sorry as great as this is it is only a second rate issue.
If the American view of France has changed more favorably, it is partly due to the current problems in Iraq which illustrate by the day the lack of planning of the Bush Administration and remind people of the emptiness of the threat posed by Saddam Hussein. Walter Jones, 'Mr Freedom Fries' himself has now expressed regrets for war jibe, turning against the war in Iraq, and the direct result is that now a majority of Americans now have a favorable view of France, says a Gallup poll.
But the most important illustration of the unwavering alliance between our two countries is to be seen behind the spotlights, in the form of a top secret center in paris, code-named 'Alliance Base', that was set up by the CIA and French intelligence services in 2002. Its existence has been recently revealed and is the topic of an article published this week-end in the Washington Post.

John E. McLaughlin, the former acting CIA director who retired recently after a 32-year career, described the relationship between the CIA and its French counterparts as "one of the best in the world. What they are willing to contribute is extraordinarily valuable."

An NBCnews T.V report by Tom Brokaw has also emphasized the importance of the cooperation between France and the U.S. on the war on terrorism.

According to the Washington Post's investigation:

Alliance Base, headed by a French general assigned to France's equivalent of the CIA -- the General Directorate for External Security (DGSE) -- was described by six U.S. and foreign intelligence specialists with involvement in its activities. The base is unique in the world because it is multinational and actually plans operations instead of sharing information among countries, they said. It has case officers from Britain, France, Germany, Canada, Australia and the United States.
The broader cooperation between the United States and France plays to the strengths of each side, according to current and former French and U.S. officials. The CIA brings money from its classified and ever-growing "foreign liaison" account -- it has paid to transport some of France's suspects from abroad into Paris for legal imprisonment -- and its global eavesdropping capabilities and worldwide intelligence service ties. France brings its harsh laws, surveillance of radical Muslim groups and their networks in Arab states, and its intelligence links to its former colonies.

But the most interesting point in the article, I think, concerns the negative role of Rumsfled who has obvisouly put his own obsession for revenge and retaliation above national security.

Rumsfeld prohibited general officers from telephoning their French counterparts, grounded U.S. planes at the Paris Air Show and disinvited the French from Red Flag, a major U.S. military exercise in which they had participated for decades.But Rumsfeld persisted a year later, excluding the French Air Force from the Red Flag exercise in 2004.
Rumsfeld's symbolic jabs baffled some officials inside the Bush administration. "Most things the secretary of defense did I could understand, even if I disagreed with him," said Lawrence B. Wilkerson, former chief of staff to Powell. "On this one, it was totally irrational, even dumb."

The good thing though is that the intelligence services showed more brains and more professional skill than Rumsfeld, keeping themselves from political and ideological subjectivity and putting national security before their egos - something Rumsfeld is clearly incapable of doing. This yet another good illustration of the dangers of giving too much power to the Pentagone when the man at the wheel has so many times proved himself incompetent. Does the name 'McNamara' ring a bell? Yep, history repeats itself in many ways..