Arabs angry over U.S. attack on Iraq

Posted 5:29AM on Thursday 20th March 2003 ( 22 years ago )

TEHRAN, IRAN - Iran's top diplomat called America's military attack on Iraq "unjustifiable and illegitimate," and elsewhere Arabs angry at what they saw as an assault on fellow Arabs predicted the United States would ultimately be defeated. But Iraqi exile Faisal Fikri called the attack "the moment I have been waiting for all my life: to see the despot gone." Fikri had switched from channel to channel through the night to watch for news of the attack on television in his small apartment in the Egyptian capital. Fikri left Iraq in 1970 shortly after President Saddam Hussein's Baath Party came to power. At the time, Fikri had been accused of plotting with other opposition figures against the new regime. U.S. President George W. Bush said he launched the attack to strip Iraq of banned weapons of mass destruction, "to free its people and to defend the world from grave danger." U.S. officials said Saddam himself was among the targets of the initial salvoes. After fighting an eight-year war against Iraq, Iran is no friend of Saddam. But Iran fears that if the United States topples Saddam and replaces him with an administration of its choosing, Washington's influence in the region will grow. Iran and the United States have been estranged since Iran's 1979 Islamic revolution. "American military operations on Iraq are unjustifiable and illegitimate," Iran's official Islamic Republic News Agency quoted Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi as saying. "The Islamic Republic of Iran will not enter into action to the benefit of either side," Kharrazi said, adding he was concerned about the authority of the United Nations being undermined after the United States attacked despite opposition from other members of the U.N. Security Council. "America's continued disregard of collective wisdom will completely destroy the valuable achievements made over half a century by nations and governments in trying to institutionalize cooperation for peace and security," Kharrazi said. Mohammed Sadeq, a former Iranian Culture Ministry adviser allied with the country's reformist camp, accused the United States of attacking to take "control of Iraq's energy resources and to fan sectarian and ethnic conflicts in the region." Iran closed its borders with Iraq shortly after the U.S.-led attack began, Deputy Interior Minister Ahmad Hosseini was quoted as telling IRNA. Hosseini added that so far no refugees had been sighted near the border and reiterated an earlier announcement that Iran would aid any Iraqis fleeing the war on the Iraqi side of the border rather than letting them cross into Iran. Word of the U.S. attack came as the Egyptian faithful were responding to the first of five daily Muslim prayers. Some worshippers gathering at mosques in the capital an hour or so before the sun rose said they had been up watching the news on television. "God, you are almighty, you are capable of turning this (war) against" the Americans, said Bashir el-Afesh as he finished his prayers in Cairo. Kamal Abou Ayta, an Egyptian political activist who has organized anti-war protests in Cairo, called the attack "illegitimate." "I believe that American soldiers whenever they step on Iraqi soil, they will be defeated," Abou Ayta said in an interview. "I am sure of that." Egyptian newspapers planned extra editions Thursday. In the Lebanese capital, papers pushed back deadlines to include war news and appeared on newsstands. Early morning anti-war protests where reported at Cairo University and Al-Azhar University - at the latter, a venerable Islamic institution in Cairo, students chanted: "Patience, patience, oh Bush, tomorrow the Muslims will dig your grave." Shortly after the attack, the U.S. embassies in Doha, Qatar, where the U.S. war command center is located, and in Cairo urged Americans to avoid crowds and demonstrations as part of "prudent steps to ensure their personal safety in the coming days." In the Palestinian areas, about 700 Palestinians, most of them schoolchildren, waved Iraqi flags and posters of Saddam and burned two U.S. flags after the attack. The Palestinians in the Gaza town of Beit Hanoun shouted "Death to America, death to Bush," and "We will sacrifice our soul and our blood for Saddam."

http://accesswdun.com/article/2003/3/201645