JOHANNESBURG, September 3, (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - New world opposition against the expected U.S. attack on Iraq was formed in the Earth Summit as several world leaders urged restraint by the United States.

South Africa's revered former president issued a stinging rebuke to the Bush administration. Nelson Mandela said Monday, September 2, that he is “appalled” by U.S. threats to attack Iraq and warned that Washington is “introducing chaos in international affairs.” He said he had spoken with President George W. Bush's father and Secretary of State Colin Powell, the British daily newspaper, the Guardian, reported.

“We are really appalled by any country, whether a superpower or a small country, that goes outside the U.N. and attacks independent countries,” Mandela said before going into a meeting with French President Jacques Chirac. “No country should be allowed to take the law into their own hands.”

The United States threatens to strike 12-year-sanction-hit Iraq in the name of toppling Iraqi President Saddam Hussein whom it insists on accusing of developing weapons of mass destruction. U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney has argued in favor of a so-called pre-emptive strike to allegedly remove Saddam from power.

“What they are saying is introducing chaos in international affairs, and we condemn that in the strongest terms,” Mandela urged.

The 1993 Nobel Peace Prize winner said he tried to call Bush to discuss the matter but that the president was not available. Mandela said he instead spoke with Powell and former President George Bush. He also planned to speak by telephone with Condoleezza Rice, Bush's assistant for national security.

A number of top figures from the previous Bush administration have spoken out recently against unilateral military action, raising speculation that the elder Bush shares some of their doubts. The former president, however, has kept silent on his son's Iraq policy.

French President Jacque Chirac, who is in South Africa to attend the World Summit on Sustainable Development, said he shared “a common position on the assessment and approach of these issues” with Mandela.

South Africa's current President, Thabo Mbeki, and German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder also urged America to exercise restraint.

The two leaders met on the fringes of the summit and “agreed they were not comfortable with any military action being taken against Iraq,” said Essop Pahad, a Cabinet minister in Mbeki's office.

Meanwhile, German Defense Minister Peter Struck said Monday that an attack on Iraq without a United Nations mandate would be “a measure that contravenes international law,” Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.

In an interview on news channel N-TV, Struck said Germany did not have enough evidence to justify any military operation to remove the Iraqi president.

Germany “does not have proof that Saddam intends to threaten any other country, no more than it has proof that he has weapons of mass destruction,” he said, quoted by AFP.

Struck also criticized the United States for failing to communicate with its NATO allies. “Unfortunately, we know nothing more than is written in the newspapers,” he said.

Last week, Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder called on the administration of U.S. President George W. Bush to consult its allies about military intervention in Iraq, not just talk about consulting them.

“If the United States acts without consulting the international community or its allies, it should also assume the responsibility alone,” Schroeder said.

In Moscow, Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov said the return of international weapons inspectors was key to resolving the crisis over Iraq and warned that military action by the United States could touch off further troubles in the volatile Middle East.

“Any forceful solution regarding Iraq would not only complicate regulation of [the crisis surrounding] Iraq still further, but would also undermine the situation in the Persian [Arab] Gulf and Middle East,” Igor Ivanov said after talks with his Iraqi counterpart, Naji Sabri.

“I hope that this question is not raised in the Security Council, that Russia's veto will not be necessary. We think that the Iraqi situation can only be resolved through diplomatic means,” Ivanov told reporters.

Russia is an outspoken opponent of U.S. military strikes on Iraq, which Bush dubs a part of an “axis of evil” that sponsors terrorism and is developing weapons of mass destruction.

In addition to the raising voices opposing the attack, ministers from the Gulf states warned Monday a U.S. attack would “provoke revenge and violence in Arab and Islamic countries” and risk plunging the world into chaos, AFP reported.

Officials for the Gulf Cooperation Council - comprising Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates - said the ministers were likely to urge Iraq to work through the UN and allow arms inspectors back.

In a speech at the Johannesburg summit, Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz railed against U.S. threats and demanded a lifting of the U.N. embargo that has crippled Iraq's economy.

“The U.S. is threatening to launch another large-scale aggression against Iraq that would bring about more devastation and subsequently lead to further catastrophes on the environment,” he said.

In Baghdad Monday, Iraqi officials took journalists on a tour of a devastated site that produced agriculture fertilizers, which the U.S. claims was allegedly part of Iraq's nuclear program.

Meanwhile, Iraq's longtime rival Iran warned that it would not stand by if its neighbor is attacked. Only the Iraqi people - not a world power - should determine the country's future, Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi said in Teheran, the Guardian said.

“Iran will not stand idle before such instability, because if a country decides to overthrow another country's government, this will create a norm,” he said.

Within the United States, opposition to an Iraq strike is growing, as members of Congress demand to debate the issue and a former attorney general plans to protest any U.S. military action.

Ramsey Clark, after returning from Iraq with a peace delegation, will announce Wednesday, September 4, plans for a national campaign and a march on Washington to stop the war.

And a group of 37 Protestant and other church leaders from North America and Britain sent letters to their respective governments Friday, August 30, expressing concern about “the likely human costs of war with Iraq, particularly for civilians,” the World Council of Churches said Monday. They warned an attack would strengthen those promoting extremism and terrorism.

American intellectuals and academics have prepared a declaration entitled (Not By Our Name) to be published in the American media on September 11, the Iraqi News Agency (INA) reported.

The declaration will call on American peoples to resist U.S. policy and objectives that appeared after September 11 events. The declaration refers to U.S. preparation to launch aggression against Iraq, which isn’t linked to September 11, INA added.