Thursday, May 22, 2003 | 9:53 a.m.
The French are not being invited to Red Flag exercises next March at Nellis Air Force Base, but the Defense Department said today the snub is not retaliation for France not supporting the war in Iraq.
In fact, Nellis pilots today are flying side-by-side with French forces over the skies of Canada in Operation Maple Flag at Code Lake near Toronto, which began May 15 and concludes June 26, officials noted.
The Washington Post reported this week that France was not extended an invitation to participate in next year's Red Flag exercises -- intense combat training designed to give pilots simulated combat experience -- and called it a sign of further deterioration in relations between the two countries.
A spokesman for the Defense Department today told the Sun that the French had been invited to participate last March at Red Flag, but those exercises were canceled because of the war in Iraq.
The participants for the March 2004 Red Flag have not yet been determined, Nellis spokesman Master Sgt. Rich Covington said.
The French were not invited to participate in the Aug. 4-26 Red Flag exercises at Nellis either, but those invitations went out last year, long before the rift in relations with France over non-support of a United Nations resolution for war with Iraq, a Pentagon spokesman said.
"Due to the quality of training at Red Flag, the U.S. Air Force consistently has more requests for participation than it can accommodate," spokesman Col. Jay DeFrank said.
"This has nothing to do with retaliation. This is a matter of our spending our limited resources where they will do the most good."
He said that would be training with countries "with whom we likely will be participating in operations in the future."
France had participated in Red Flag operations for the past two years in its Mirage 2000 jets, and their association to Red Flag goes back to the 1980s, Nellis and Defense Department officials said.
Covington said January's Red Flag, which was a U.S.-only operation, was canceled as well as the March exercises.
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