Pro-Iraq war Bernard Kouchner is Foreign Minister of France

Pro-Iraq war Bernard Kouchner is Foreign Minister of France

Bernard Kouchner, the man behind Medecins sans Frontieres (Doctors without Borders), a one-time U.N. administrator and ex-health minister, is highly skilled in the art of global management. He has played a crucial role in international humanitarian efforts for more than 30 years, supervising people and projects in many of the world's war-ravaged areas from El Salvador to Rwanda.

Frustrated with the charity's strict code of neutrality and reliance on the permission of the host government to give assistance, he and like-minded medics set up Medecins sans Frontieres (MSF) three years later. And in 1999 MSF -- an organization that believes in the right to intervene with medical aid in any conflict or disaster -- received the Nobel peace price for its humanitarian work.

"To be alone as a pioneer...like we were, was difficult. My strategy was not only to help the people, or transform the world, but to do both," Kouchner explains. The first United Nations administrator in postwar Kosovo also puts his success down to teamwork.

"All my activities were collective activities -- like setting up MSF and Doctors of the World. I am not able to act alone...I have my style listening to the people," he says. Contrary to popular French opinion, the 64-year-old strongly approved of regime change in Iraq, after witnessing the plight of the Kurds for decades. "In my country it's not easy at all. If you are a pioneer you are a target and if you are the winner you are more targeted than before," he says. Kouchner has already accepted Sarkozy's proposition of being Foreign Minister.

A rumor spread by AFP about anti-US Hubert Védrine was in fact not true. Good news for the USA and the free world. Kouchner wrote a book condemning Saddam Hussein and supported every overthrow of tyrannic regimes.