PARIS, Jan 20: Estimating that the cost of a war against Iraq would cost “100 billion dollars,” President Jacques Chirac says that the money might be better spent “supplying drugs to poor countries” and encouraged Iraqi authorities to “cooperate more actively” with UN inspectors “in order to avoid the worst.”

Not one to mince his words, especially when it comes to speaking of a possible war with Iraq, Mr Chirac noted, in a six- column front page interview in this morning’s edition of daily newspaper Le Figaro that “I wonder whether all of this (the possibility of a costly war with Iraq) is reasonable, when you realize that we are incapable of supplying much-needed drugs to poor countries that are perpetually fighting against diseases of epidemic proportions.”

“Naturally,” he adds, “all of this, as far as I’m concerned, calls for Iraq to show greater proof of a veritable cooperation (with UN inspectors), at a moment when, today, we can doubt whether her (present) cooperation is sufficient. We hope that it will become more active, at least that is what I hope, for one, will be the case.”

All of this, he says, “to avoid a war in a part of the world that doesn’t need another conflict, and which would have human consequences that would be very important, political consequences that would be hard to master, as well as economic consequences of a considerable financial cost.”

Having said that, he notes, in an obvious pique at Washington, that “it’s up to the inspectors themselves — and not for any country in particular — to judge for themselves if they’re accomplishing their task or not.”