MAIN MAN: For better or worse, Chirac's stance has thrust him into the center of global debate
Jacques Chirac isn't looking for a ladder to climb down from his opposition to a military intervention in Iraq. In fact, he's offering George W. Bush a ladder to climb down from the brink of conflict. "If they were to ask me for my friendly advice, I would counsel against [war]," the French President said during an interview with TIME Saturday at his office in the Elysée Palace. If the reinforced inspection regime Chirac has proposed is taken up, and if against experience and widespread expectation it proves effective in disarming Saddam Hussein, Bush could claim a double victory:...
