RE: UN Ship Nomenclature

You wrote: 

>I know this is once again dangerous territory but I don't remember the
>French supporting Hussein.  Certainly they seemed to be on the wrong 

Sure. They were kinda subtle about it.	You see them now openly 
clamoring to lift sanctions so they can sell weapons to him again.  At 
least the Germans were embarassed about selling him chemical weapons!  
Anyway, the French were self-proclaimed neutral in the whole mess 
during the summer of '90, then in they were the ones in Fall of '90 
whining and moaning about giving sanctions "time to take effect" (Based 
on Cuban Example, 40+ years isn't enough time for sanctions to "take 
effect") and the French Government even tried to cover up the fact that 
French citizens were taken hostage along with other Westerners.  Their 
Defense Minister resigned over the issue of attacking Iraq.  Indeed 
said Minister, Jean-Pierre Chevenement, publicly proposed redrawing the 
Iraq-Kuwait border to give Iraq the oil fields that were in dispute!  
And the French initially refused to support the operation unless a 
French officer was appointed to command it!  This was quietly 
squelched--but CENTCOM didn't actually assume command over the French 
forces until after the bombs started dropping.	Everything prior to 
that was based on the personal relationships between the senior Allied 
officers and the senior French officers.

John M. Atkinson