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U.S.-British Raids Fuel Further Tension In Mideast
BAGHDAD, Feb 18 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Iraq bombarded U.S. President George W. Bush with insults on Sunday for ordering air strikes that stirred international condemnation and added tension in the Middle East as thousands of Baghdadis staged angry protests for a second day.
Iraq taunted Bush, calling him a "dwarf" after a joint U.S.-British air raid on Baghdad brought Iraq sympathy from around the world and aggravated an already present uneasiness in a region wracked by nearly five months of Israeli-Palestinian violence.
"This criminal will fare no better against Iraq than his father," George Bush, who as U.S. president waged the 1991 Gulf War that expelled Iraqi occupation forces from Kuwait, said the Babel newspaper, run by President Saddam Hussein's elder son Uday.
"The new dwarf in the 'Black House' will not be capable of doing any better than his father, who suffered a stinging defeat," it said, referring to the survival of Saddam's rule.
In response to the raid which Iraq said killed two civilians, Saddam announced Saturday he had ordered the creation of 21 military divisions for his "Jerusalem Liberation Army."
On the streets of a rainy Baghdad, around 3,000 demonstrators in a southern suburb chanted slogans of "yes to jihad, no to submission," taking up Saddam's battle cry of holy war against Israel to "liberate Palestine."
In messages sent to the United Nations, Foreign Minister Mohammad Said al-Sahhaf called for the world body to take a stand. "This aggression comes at a time when Iraq is preparing for a comprehensive dialogue with the U.N. secretary general [Kofi Annan], a factor which gives the Security Council additional responsibility to condemn this aggression," he wrote.
But Deputy Defense Minister Ephraim Sneh said Israel did not consider Saddam an immediate danger, although his threats "must be taken seriously. He has proved in the past that he meant them."
Iraq launched 39 Scud missiles at Israel during the Gulf War and Saddam recently threatened to bombard the Jewish state daily for six months to support the Palestinian uprising.
Sneh also warned against any growing alliance between Iraq with Syria and Iran, which both strongly condemned the joint U.S.-British raid. "A rapprochement between Syria, Iraq and Iran would be dangerous because it can lead to an upsurge in violence intended to provoke us into responding, and to a limited conflict with Syria," Sneh told Israeli radio.
New fears of a regional conflict were triggered just hours before the U.S. raid when the Lebanese resistance movement Hezbollah ambushed an Israeli patrol in the disputed Shebaa Farms, killing one soldier.
It was the first such attack by Hezbollah since rightwing Likud leader Ariel Sharon was elected Israel's prime minister February 6th. Caretaker Prime Minister Ehud Barak reiterated Sunday that Israel holds Hezbollah, Beirut and Damascus, the main powerbroker in Lebanon, and Iran, a Hezbollah patron, "responsible for maintaining quiet along the border."
"Israel will respond as it sees fit at the appropriate time," Barak said in a statement released by his office.
Barak may become Israel's next defense minister in a Sharon government after tentatively agreeing to a national unity government. But Barak, who said after his stinging 25-point defeat that he was leaving office, is facing a hail of criticism from inside his Labor party, which must approve the unity deal.
Events in Iraq are likely to fuel more unrest in the Palestinian territories this week, as a coalition of Palestinian movements called for more "days of rage" to protest the air raids and rally opposition to Sharon.
A thousand Palestinians rallied Sunday in the Gaza Strip, holding up portraits of the Iraqi leader and shouting "Saddam Saddam, strike Tel Aviv."
Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's top aide, Nabil Abu Rudeina, said the U.S. strikes "will only lead to more tension."
"The United States is wasting time, it should attend to its role as sponsor for the peace process to preserve security and stability," he said. Few world leaders, in the Middle East or elsewhere, expressed support for the U.S.-British air raid.
Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, whose government is a key U.S. ally, said the raid "served only to complicate the situation, killing innocent civilians."
"I don't think Saddam is a threat to the world. Iraq is not a super-power and does not have sophisticated intercontinental missiles," Mubarak told the Italian newspaper La Republica.
But an official from Kuwait, which provided base for the warplanes that carried out the raid, said the strikes "basically came as a response to Iraqi positions, which necessitated the attacks."
"The new development was the return of Iraq to making threats, casting doubts on Kuwait's legitimate existence and creating a state of tension in the Arab-Arab relations, charged Sheikh Mohammad al-Sabah, the state minister for foreign affairs.
He also stressed Washington and London's rationale for the strikes: that Iraqi anti-air defenses had been improved and were putting at risk pilots who enforce no-fly zones in northern and southern Iraq.
Similarly, an official newspaper in Saudi Arabia turned its sights on Saddam, calling the Iraqi people "hostages to a regime which exploits their suffering to stay in power."
"To stay in power is the overriding priority of this regime which has plunged the country, its neighbors and all the Arabs in the throes of war," Al-Watan said, without commenting directly on the raids.
Russia and China both strongly condemned the bombings, accusing the United States of abusing its power, while France said the raids "maintained tension harmful to a concerted solution to the Iraq problem."
Among other notable reactions, Turkey, also a base for U.S. and British warplanes flying over Iraq, said it was clear U.S. policy toward Baghdad since the Gulf War has been "unsuccessful."
"Even though the related U.N. resolutions refer to Iraq's territorial integrity, Iraq is now practically divided and nobody knows how it will return to its previous state," Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit told the Milliyet daily.
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