U.S.-Europe rift unlikely to affect industrial ties.

The falling out between the United States, France and Germany over the war in Iraq has prompted fears that defense industrial relationships will suffer.

EADS North America--a holding company of the European Aeronautic Defense & Space Co. EADS--has been the target of numerous questions about how the rift will affect business in the U.S. defense market. Ralph Crosby, chief executive officer of EADS North America, said that he has not seen any direct impact of the political warring on Iraq on the company's business plan.

"We are very sensitive in the environment, and we have observed very closely," he said at a recent media breakfast.

"We are not a French company. That is the first thing that I tell people. We are a global aerospace company," he noted. "When you look, we are in Germany, Dance, Spain and the United States. We are pretty well dispersed."

EADS was formed in 2000 by a merger of Aerospatiale Matta of France, Daimler Chrysler Aerospace of Germany and Construcciones Aeronauticas of Spain. EADS North America last month, consolidated all its activities into a holding company. Its most visible footprint in the U.S. right now, apart from its Airbus operations, is the Coast Guard's Deepwater program, specifically to provide upgraded HH-65 Dolphin helicopters and CN-235 aircraft. He said that, by opening a company in North America, EADS has made a "multi-year commitment to this market place."

Crosby mentioned the letter that Pete Aldridge, the undersecretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics wrote to Congress in which he asked that the U.S. stay committed to its cooperative programs.

"If Pete Aldridge can stand up and say that in the middle of the war, I am certainly pleased to say that we are going to play our role to support that," he said. According to Crosby, the real question is how long the dispute would last. "My tendency is to believe that the half-life will be shorter than longer," he said.