Stardate 20021009.1834

(Captain's log): While hunting through my archives for something else, I ran into this link from October 4 last year.

Emphasizing the need for further agreements between NATO allies, France's defense minister said Thursday that U.S. military retaliation following last month's terrorist attacks on Washington and New York isn't likely for several weeks.

Defense Minister Alain Richard said many key decisions by nations participating in the U.S. anti-terrorism campaign had not yet been made and should not be made in haste.

...

Blair told parliament that three of the hijackers have been "positively identified" as bin Laden associates and that one of them was involved in the 1998 attacks on the U.S. embassies in East Africa and last year's attack on the U.S.S. Cole.

"We are now approaching the difficult time when action is taken. It will be difficult, there are no easy options," Blair told lawmakers.

But in Paris, the french defense minister said action was not likely to take place for "several weeks."

"The decisions to take action haven't been made," Richard said. "Everyone is going to prepare their own means that will be well-adapted for a joint effort. We aren't at the end of that."

The bombing started 3 days later, and there was no "joint effort". Which makes me wonder: was this deliberate disinformation by the French, or were they out of the loop?