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