If your transcription is correct, it is an ungrammatical usage on the part of the reporter. We say "an act of cowardice" or "a coward" but not "a cowardice" (except when distinguishing types or degrees of cowardice: "a cowardice of the worst kind"). But "a cowardice" cannot be applied to a person or country, only to their acts and failures to act.

@TimRomano I also believe so. There is a possibility that the journalist was mistaken, but his English was not "broken" at all.

'Cowardice' is wrong. That should answer 1,3,4. #2: cowardice does not rhyme at all with France.

Do you have a link to the podcast? What minute and second?

How can someone have a thick French-English accent? The journalist must have been French.

Can you share the exact source? I guess you could have misinterpreted/misheard the remark.

The only likely transcription error I can think of is if the reporter said "labeled France's cowardice..." , but that's a bit odd as well. I'm sure @TimRomano is right.

@chaslyfromUK I tried to find the link but failed, and you have to listen to it through "BBC World Service/Global News" podcast. I am not sure if you can listen to it on the BBC website. The Title of the program is "Syria peace talks in Vienna" and the quotes are at 24:23.

Also keep in mind that even native English speakers misuse a word every now and then, especially when they're having to improvise on the spot.

@JHCL Yeap. If he had not used "labeled" as a verb, I would not have posted this question.

@Rathony I've just listened to the clip and the "a" could actually be an "errr" (thinking) noise, but it still doesn't make sense to me.

@RobinWilliams Is my transcription wrong except for the "err" part?

@Rathony No, your transcript is fine :-) It was more of a suggestion than a correction, based on previous parts of the conversation where the guy had paused to think. When I said "it still doesn't make sense" I meant the actual sentence, rather than your transcript.

The journalist was indead hesitating, searching for words, what may explain the improper use of cowardice. In this sentence, you can't replace "as a cowardice" by its opposite, "as a courage".

I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because it is about a slip of the tongue.

I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because it is about a slip of a tongue made by an American president who was so famous for those that Michael Kinsley wrote a robust recurring column about them.

@Robusto I tried to find the original sentence/line made by "the" American president, but coudn't. You cannot conclude "a slip of a tongue" was made by him even though we can assume it was made by either of them (the journalist/president). And your link is irrelevant to the question as it is not asking about "Bushism".

Refresh the page and try again. I had the wrong link the first time.

Another link to Bushisms. Seriously, tough, just search for Kinsley Slate Bushisms and you'll find tons.

@Robusto, It's not necessarily a slip of the tongue. It could be a slight mispronunciation of the adjective 'cowardish'. yourdictionary.com/cowardish (see edit to my answer)

@Robusto Bush's Bushisms are not any part of my question at all. I would have flagged any question related with Bushisms myself.

@chaslyfromUK: Don't tell me you're too young to have seen W in action.

@Rathony: In fact a Bushism is central to your question, IMO, which is why I voted to close: ". . . 'George [W. Bush] the former President, 12 years ago labeled France as a cowardice when it came into the war in Iraq.'"

@Robusto, I think you have to find the original if you want to attribute it to Dubya. I don't think the journalist was quoting verbatim. Even if he was, maybe Bush used 'cowardish' in the original.

The question is about the quote given here. I don't have to look elsewhere. At any rate, my point stands: this is a poor question for ELU.

I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because it's about a clearly invalid usage, and we don't even have a link confirming that it actually occurred at all.

@FumbleFingers It occurred and Robin Willams confirmed it after listening to it. As I said in the above comment, I tried to find the script, but coudn't. It has to do with "English Learning and Usage" and I still believe it is an "on-topic" question.

@Rathony: If you're a native speaker it should be obvious to you there's nothing meaningful about this question. If you're not, you should be asking on ELL anyway. But I'd still vote to close there, because there really isn't anything to be learned from what could only be a slip of the tongue even if we could all listen to it. Note that this site is English Language & Usage - don't conflate it with English Language Learners.

@FumbleFingers I am also asking about the etymology about these 2 words and how they have come to have different meanings. Is it also very obvious to you as a native speaker?

@Rathony: Not when I'm on ELU, no. Here, my default assumption is that all posters are linguists, etymologists, and (serious) English language enthusiasts, who should already either know or be capable of establishing elsewhere that coward derives from French, and that -ice is a suffix of nouns, indicating state or quality, appearing in loanwords from French

@FumbleFingers If you find my post is worse than this question, I am more than willing to accept your conclusion. The linked question doesn't have any flag (while my post has 4 already) and it is very obvious to me it was not posted by someone in your assumption. If you want me to find more questions of such poor quality, it won't take very long to find them which are still not closed.

Rathony, coward cowardice TL;DR both came... argh @FumbleFingers got it already. To a native speaker, the original use of 'cowardice' in that context is obviously a mistake, so your whole line of interest in this is misfounded. If it weren't a mistake, this might be a good question. As it is, it ain't.

@Mitch I don't think you get what I meant. There are more than thousands of questions (maybe tens of thousands) that are very obvious to native speakers. Still they are not closed. I am pointing out and criticizing you guys' double standards. That's all. How many instances do you think I found "native speakers" using English in a wrong way and not understanding the context. It's not about whether it is obvious to native speakers or not.

Here's the link. Quoted passge is at 24:23 in podcast, bbc.co.uk/programmes/p036nzxp

@chasly from UK: I know I should have better things to do with my time, but I can't find the cited passage anywhere in that link - either played directly, or after downloading the mp3 file.

@rathony I'm not sure I understand the double standard. But comments are not the best place for a discussion. Maybe a meta question (if you have a question that can be made out of this) or, probably better, chat. Would you be satisfied with a formal answer that says 'no, cowardice was an error'?