The United States rebuffed French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin’s assertion that Iraq was free of terrorism before the US-led war. “The fact of the matter is, terrorism existed before the action in Iraq,” US State Department spokesman Adam Ereli said. “There were terrorist organizations operating in Iraq. “So the use of terror is, unfortunately, I think, a function of our modern world, and to try to say that it was existent in one part and not existent in another part I think ignores the fluidity of the phenomenon,” Ereli said. De Villepin told French daily Le Monde on Thursday that the Iraq war “did not bring this world more stability.” “Let’s stick with the facts: terrorism did not exist in Iraq before the war. Today, that country is one of the main centers of international terrorism,” said the top French diplomat. Full Story