Cairo
|Reuters | Gulf News, 01-04-2003
Egyptian President Hosni
Mubarak said yesterday the war on Iraq would produce "one hundred new
bin Ladens", driving more Muslims to anti-Western militancy.
"When it is over, if it is over, this war will have horrible
consequences," Mubarak told Egyptian soldiers in the city of Suez.
"Instead of having one (Osama) bin Laden, we will have 100 bin Ladens,"
he added. Osama bin Laden is the militant leader blamed by the United
States for the September 11, 2001 attacks on New York and Washington.
Egypt, a key regional U.S. ally which has cracked down hard on militants,
publicly opposes the war launched by Washington to overthrow President
Saddam Hussain.
European opponents of the war, led by French President Jacques Chirac,
have also argued that military action against Iraq would fuel terrorism
and split the international coalition assembled by Washington to fight bin
Laden's al Qaeda network.
Mubarak said Iraqi forces fighting U.S. and British troops were
"guarding Iraq's lands and defending its national honour and
nobility" in the conflict.
Reflecting widespread public anger at what many Arabs see as Western
aggression against an Arab country, he said the war would cause a
"great tragedy (and) destroy a deep-rooted culture and people".
"Egypt's position has been and still is clear in rejecting...the
military option and rejecting participation in military action of the
coalition forces against brotherly Iraq," he said.
Mubarak said the war had raised many questions, especially among the Arab
and Muslim peoples of the Middle East, about the "credibility of the
international system of collective security represented in the United
Nations".
Many Arabs think Washington has employed double standards in enforcing UN
resolutions on Iraq while not making Israel comply with resolutions
demanding withdrawal from Palestinian territories and an end to Jewish
settlements.
Mubarak read out the highlights of an international plan for
Israeli-Palestinian peace called the "roadmap", saying that
while the Palestinian Authority had accepted it, the government of Israeli
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon had asked for 100 changes.