Mahathir warns U.S. against ignoring United Nations on Iraq

Mahathir warns U.S. against ignoring United Nations on Iraq

Simon Cameron-Moore
Reuters
Putrajaya, Malaysia

Any U.S.-led attack on Iraq risks fanning Muslim feelings of
persecution and creating a new generation of would-be al-Qaeda
members, Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad warned in an
interview on Wednesday.

Mahathir, viewed as one of the few strong moderate voices in
the Muslim world, said Malaysia will reluctantly back an attack
on Iraq only if the United Nations decides that Baghdad has
failed to dismantle weapons of mass destruction.

"If the UN says, so we will," said Mahathir, speaking at the
palatial prime minister's office in Putrajaya, the new
administrative capital he began carving out of the jungle four
years ago.

But the 77-year-old leader feared the consequences of a war
could haunt the world in the years ahead, due to the enmity
stoked by the sight of Iraqi civilian casualties in a second Gulf
War.

He said war could create more followers for al-Qaeda, the
group blamed for the attacks on the United States in 2001, or
Jamaah Islamiyah, the Southeast Asian network said to be behind
the bombings on the Indonesian island of Bali that killed nearly
200 mostly western tourists last October.

"That is what I fear," said the Malaysian leader, whose police
have locked up more than 70 suspected militants in a crackdown
that gathered momentum after the Sept. 11 attacks on Washington
and New York 17 months ago.

"That is why I feel the U.S. should not increase the anger in
the Muslim world by attacking Iraq. It does not contribute to the
fight against terrorism."

Although Mahathir is the leader of a nation of just 24 million
people far from the Gulf, his words carry extra resonance as
Malaysia takes over the chair of the Non-Aligned Movement of
developing nations later this month, and the Organization of the
Islamic Conference in October.

Speaking just hours before U.S. Secretary of State Colin
Powell was due to present evidence to the United Nations seeking
to show Iraq is hiding banned weapons, Mahathir said he hoped
Powell will reassert the need for UN involvement in any decision
to attack Iraq..

"But of late, he sounds more hawkish than before. I don't
know, perhaps because he's a member of the administration he must
toe the line," said Mahathir.

"But I think as one of the few moderate members of the cabinet
he would respect the need to get support from the rest of the
world for attacking Iraq."

Due to retire in October after 22 years in charge, Mahathir's
speeches -- ranging from the need for Muslims to be progressive
to Asia's development as an economic force capable of challenging
the West -- are regularly reprinted in Japan, across the Muslim
world and in Africa.

Feisty, and blunt speaking, Mahathir is used to stepping on
toes -- and only last year he risked Muslim ire by branding
Palestinian suicide bombers as terrorists, though he said they
were incited by Israeli state terrorism.

Mahathir was thanked in Washington a year ago for backing the
U.S.-led war on terror and the reception room in which he was
speaking features a photo of himself with President George W.
Bush at the White House.

He recently wrote to Bush counseling against war.

"I received a reply from him explaining the fear of (Iraqi
President) Saddam Hussein having weapons of mass destruction, and
obviously the animosity is directed against Saddam Hussein.

"But we are not concerned with Saddam Hussein. We are
concerned with the people of Iraq," said Mahathir, who has long
advocated that the UN should lift economic sanctions slapped on
Iraq after the first Gulf War.

"For 10 long years, the people of Iraq have been starved of
food, deprived of medicine. About 1.5 million of them died as a
result, children have been born deformed."

Criticizing the U.S. objective of ousting Saddam, he said the
world has been highly selective over which repressive regimes it
acts against, citing as worse examples, the killing fields in
Cambodia in the late 1970s and the massacres in Bosnia in the
1990s.

Singapore -- Page 11

Iraq -- Page 12