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"I
fear that there really is chaos there (in Iraq). We don't know
what's going to happen. One or two Americans a day are
killed," Albright (AFP)
|
PARIS,
October 16 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - Former U.S.
secretary of state Madeleine Albright on Thursday, October 16, joined
an increasing number of leading American figures dissatisfied with the
U.S. President George Bush administration and faulting its foreign
policy.
"It's
difficult to be in France and criticize my government. But I'm doing
so because Bush and the people working for him have a foreign policy
that is not good for America, not good for the world," she told
the French radio.
Taking
issue with Bush's unilateralism, Albright, Washington's first ever
woman secretary of state, maintained that "America is much
stronger in a multilateral system."
The
U.S. "must be on the same side, work with other people in the
world. It shouldn't be America versus the others," she said,
speaking in French, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).
Taking
up the situation in Iraq, Albright, who had also served as U.S.
ambassador to the U.N., vocalized "fear that there really is
chaos there. We don't know what's going to happen. One or two
Americans a day are killed."
On
Bush's insistence before and after the war that ousted Iraqi president
Saddam Hussein had ties with Osama bin Laden and Al-Qaeda, she
asserted: "I didn't really think that there was a link."
Even
if ridding Iraq of its "terrible" leader had its merits,
Albright added: "I don't understand why the war happened now. I
would have liked to see us concentrate on Afghanistan."
Commenting
on France's adamant opposition to Washington's go-it-alone stance,
Albright admitted that Paris was "a little bit right"
thought "it's method is not always the best."
On
Sunday, May 19, Albright asserted it was sometimes difficult for her
to see cohesion in the Bush administration's foreign policy.
"Because
on some important issues, the Bush foreign policy team seems to be suffering
from untreated bipolar disorder,"
she said.
"They
talk about the importance of our alliances in Europe and Asia and then
fail to employ our alliances on matters of mutual security
concern."
Alight
was not the first American, or even world prominent figure, to take
aim at the Bush administration foreign policy, particularly when it
came to Iraq.
Former
U.S. vice president Al Gore had accused Bush of orchestrating "a
systematic effort to manipulate facts."
Addressing
a gathering at New York University Thursday, August 7, Gore said the
"direction in which our nation is being led now is deeply
troubling to me, not only in Iraq, but also here at home."
He
lamented that "too many of our soldiers are paying the highest
price for the strategic miscalculations,
serious misjudgments and historic mistakes that have put them and our nation in harm's way."
Famous
American billionaire George Soros, who launched a grass-roots
initiative to raise up to $75 million to prevent Bush from being
re-elected, said Washington would only stop pursuing "extremist
policies" if there was a change in the White House.
"I
am very hopeful that people will wake up and realize that they have
been led down the garden path, that actually 11 September has been
hijacked by a bunch of extremists to put into effect policies that
they were advocating before such as the invasion of Iraq," he
said.
Criticizing
Bush's unilateral war on Iraq, former Soviet president Mikhail
Gorbachev said Tuesday, October 7, "there is some other agenda,
other than weapons and Saddam Hussein…What kind of hidden
agenda,
well, that needs to be understood.".
