The Hindu : International : Iraqi Minister lashes out at U.S., U.K.

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, May 10, 2004

International

International

Iraqi Minister lashes out at U.S., U.K.

LONDON/KERBALA, MAY 9. Tony Blair is to push for Muslim troops from Pakistan to be deployed in Iraq in a desperate attempt to shore up the reputation of the coalition forces following the widely-condemned images of abuse of Iraqi detainees.

The British Prime Minister and his Defence Secretary, Geoff Hoon, have called for "channels to be opened" with Pakistan and India, which have said they will consider sending forces only if a United Nations resolution on the future of Iraq can be passed.

The move comes as the coalition operation faced fresh criticism and British soldiers were involved in the first major combat operations across southern Iraq since the end of the war to remove Saddam Hussein.

In an interview with the London-based Observer, Hoshyar Zebari, the Iraqi Foreign Minister, launched a scathing attack on the American and British Governments, accusing them of an ideological approach that had led to a series of grave errors. Speaking in his office in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Baghdad, Mr. Zebari, who was appointed to his post in September last year, said that an application of ideology and western standards to the complicated and violent reality in Iraq had been a big mistake.

"The situation is very serious," he said.

"The aim of the insurgents is to defeat the coalition, to defeat what is seen as American and British colonialism and to deter them from repeating their project in Iraq elsewhere.

They are settling scores with the US.

They want to make life hell for them and we are paying in Iraqi blood."

The British Government wants to see rapid progress on a new U.N. resolution.

American and British officials at the U.N.'s headquarters in New York are working on a wording of a new resolution likely to be placed before the Security Council over the next few weeks.

British officials said they expected a resolution to be passed before the official hand-over of sovereignty to the Iraqis on June 30.

Pakistan is head of the U.N. Security Council which will be required to agree it.

Military sources said that no final decision had yet been taken on sending further British troops, though there had been an informal request from the Americans for the British to "extend their sphere of influence" outside the confines of the southern sector of the country.

The dangerous situation in Iraq was emphasised with fighting involving British troops in Basra.

Four British soldiers were injured, none seriously, and two Iraqis killed as British patrols and government buildings were attacked in Basra, the southern port city controlled by U.K. forces for over a year.

- Guardian Newspapers Limited, 2004

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