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‘THE CONFLICT is not yet over because we are still in a position for doing something,” asserts General Daniel Gazeau, the commander of French land forces in the Gulf, as he visits an army helicopter battalion on the northwest corner of the allied demarcation line in southern Iraq. French Gazelle and U.S. Apache helicopters took the Iraqi airfield of As-Salman during the initial stages of the land offensive in February and still remain 125 miles deep inside Iraq. Destroyed Iraqi aircraft bunkers line the runway that now serves the French and American forces.

France is the only member of the coalition still maintaining a presence in southern Iraq along with the U.S. Army’s VII Corps. The allied line extends from the American 1st Infantry Division guarding approaches to the southern Iraqi cities of Basra and Nazariya on the east, to the 11th Aviation Brigade positioned with the French battalion on the west, only an hour’s helicopter flight from Baghdad.

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Martin Arostegui

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‘THE CONFLICT is not yet over because we are still in a position for doing something,” asserts General Daniel Gazeau, the commander of French land forces in the Gulf, as he visits an army helicopter battalion on the northwest corner of the allied demarcation line in southern Iraq. French Gazelle and U.S. Apache helicopters took the Iraqi airfield of As-Salman during the initial stages of the land offensive in February and still remain 125 miles deep inside Iraq. Destroyed Iraqi aircraft bunkers line the runway that now serves the French and American forces.

France is the only member of the coalition still maintaining a presence in southern Iraq along with the U.S. Army’s VII Corps. The allied line extends from the American 1st Infantry Division guarding approaches to the southern Iraqi cities of Basra and Nazariya on the east, to the 11th Aviation Brigade positioned with the French battalion on the west, only an hour’s helicopter flight from Baghdad.