No surprise -- the French are throwing up more obstacles to the removal of Saddam Hussein, allowing the Butcher of Baghdad more freedom to wreak havoc -- just to protect their oil industry.

Consider:

Demonstrating the concern was a surprise visit this summer to the Washington office of the Iraqi National Congress — a U.S.-backed opposition group — by a Russian diplomat interested in Iraqi oil. It was the first such high-level contact in years.

"He basically told me that 'Russia is an old friend to Iraq and we have culture, and industrial bonds and we think we should talk,'" recalls Entifad Qanbar, who heads the opposition group's office.

"I think money was on his mind," says Qanbar. "Oil is money. Money, I mean, because Iraq has an abundance of oil … It represents a way of making money."

Who will make that money? Over the last decade, companies from more than a dozen nations have been in Baghdad signing deals to develop Saddam's oil reserves. Among them are TotalFinaElf, a French company developing the oil field near the Iranian border, and Lukoil, a Russian company developing another oil field in the Iraqi desert.

Both deals are dependent on the end of U.N. sanctions against the Saddam regime. But will the same contracts be honored after a war if Saddam is gone? Not if the Iraqi National Congress has anything to say about it.

Don't let the French's desire to protect ELF doom innocents to torment --

DOWN WITH SADDAM!!! SCREW THE FRENCH!