Apparently, Jacques Chirac is a cowboy.

President Ion Iliescu of Romania led the counter-attack, describing M Chirac’s words as an affront to East Europe’s newly liberated nations.

“Such reproaches are totally unjustified, unwise, and undemocratic,” he said in Brussels, where he was attending a post- summit gathering of East European leaders yesterday which backed the EU’s tough new line on Iraq.

“It is unwise to separate countries into pro-American and anti-American. I thought it was outdated to say ‘He who is not with us is against us’,” he added.