COALITION MUST NOT BE SUBORDINATED TO THE UNITED NATIONS
By Safa Haeri, IPS Editor
PARIS 11 Apr. (IPS) "Now that Saddam Hoseyn has been toppled and the Iraqi people freed from his brutal yoke, the American and the British forces would not stay one day more than necessary", assured Friday the British Ambassador in Paris, Sir John Holmes.
"We are aware that if we stay more than what is necessary, from an army of liberation we shall become and army of occupation. We don’t want that", Sir Homes said, speaking to French and international correspondents at the Foreign Journalist’s Centre (CAPE) in Paris.
The Ambassador, a former Director of the British Prime Minister’s Cabinet, repeated several times that it was Saddam Hoseyn’s Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) that prompted the coalition, "at least the British", to engage Iraq, but he failed to convince.
"We were looking for a peaceful solution, but Mr. Hoseyn did not seize the chance offered to him. Therefore, we decided to attack, taking all the measures to keep to the minimum human casualties and material destructions", he said.
He also rejected claims that the aim of the war on Iraq was the control of its huge oil reserves. "If this would have been the central issue, we could have done it by other means, but certainly not war", he observed.
The ambassador assured that the Coalition was determined to "uphold the integrity of Iraq in its international borders, to introduce democracy and make sure that the nation would live in peace with all its neighbours" and added that both the British and the Americans were hoping that the present political vacuum would be filled in the coming days.
He was visibly at pain explaining the Coalition’s failure in finding any WMD cache or depot, "assuring" that "there are such weapons" and they would be found "soon".
"Iraq is a rather big country and we are in control of all the land. So, we are sure that there are weapons of mass destruction as well as chemical arms", he told journalists.
The diplomat, a former ambassador to Lisbon, almost write off the six-men provisory government the Iraqi opposition had formed a month ago in Salaheddin, in the Iraqi Kurdistan controlled by the Kurds, when asked why the Coalition do not call on that equip to restore law and order in Baghdad and other major cities that are scenes of lootings, arsons, gang-fights and revenge taking.
The Provisory government was made of the two main Kurdish parties, the Tehran-based Supreme Assembly of the Islamic Revolution of Iraq, the Iraqi National Congress, the Iraqi National Movement and the Constitutionalists Monarchists.
"That government does represents the exiles only, while a real interim government must be made of a majority of Iraqis from inside", he pointed out, adding that such an Administration would be supervised by the coalition, "at least for a certain time" he did not define.
Both Iraqi Kurdish and Shi'ite sources told Iran Press Service that they had the "feeling" that Washington is looking for personalities from inside to talk to, considering the opposition-designated provisory government could not be a solution.
However, they confirmed that the six main opposition groups are scheduled to meet next week in the southern city of Naseriyeh, where the INC leader, Mr. Ahmad Chalabi, a banker of Shi'a faith has established his HQ.
To a question about Paris- Washington raw over Iraq, the diplomat, speaking in fluent French, said Europe must be a partner of the United States and not a rival. "Has France another view?" he asked, confirming the two sides conflicting idea about the role of the United Nations in post-Saddam period.
At the US Senate, Deputy Defence Secretary Paul Wolfowitz observed that since France had adopted an anti-American attitude, preferring Saddam to the US, therefore, Paris must pay for its anti-American decisions.
"The Coalition shall not be subordinated to the United Nations", he emphasised, avoiding other pertinent questions over the rift between the anti-war front and the pro-war group, which are respectively France, Germany and Russia in the one hand, the United States, England and Spain on the other.
Asked about the Coalition’s plans for solving the Israeli-Palestinian bloody conflict, the former Head of Middle East and African section of the Foreign Office said London was "100 per cent in favour of the creation of a Palestinian independent state next to Israel.
"Since President Bush has assured that he would vest himself fully in solving the Israeli-Palestinian crisis, time is ripe for implementing the road map, for the situation is disastrous, but the solution is known to all, that is the creation of two independent states", Sir John Holmes indicated. ENDS GB IRAQ 11403