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War on Iraq has brought chaos, not reform, says Yemeni President Saleh
Jordan Times, 6/30/03
DUBAI (AP) — Yemen's president has criticised the US-led war in Iraq,
saying it has brought chaos instead of promised reform to the Arab
country.
“What we see now after the end of Saddam's regime is not stability and
quiet in Iraq, but ... robbery, rape, looting, assassinations and absence
of security,” Ali Abdullah Saleh said in an interview conducted in Paris
with Lebanon's Future TV.
In the interview aired late Saturday and monitored in Dubai, Saleh criticised America's decision to dissolve Iraq's security forces, saying US and British troops “have no alternative” to these bodies.
“Almost three months has passed and there is no hope or indication of security and stability in Iraq,” he said.
Yemen is a close US ally and supporter of the war on terror, but like most Arab countries opposed the invasion of Iraq. After the war, Saleh said Saddam's ouster should serve as a lesson for fellow Arab leaders to choose democracy as the way to rule their countries. His comments marked a shift from his position during the 1991 Gulf War, when he was one of few Arab leaders to openly support Saddam's regime.
Saleh said the almost daily attacks against coalition forces in Iraq resulted from “the administrative vacuum” in the country.
Saleh arrived in France on a two-leg European tour that included Germany.
In Germany, he met with officials ahead of a court decision on a US request to extradite Mohammad Ali Hassan Al Moayad, a former Yemeni lawmaker arrested in Germany in January, and his aide, Mohammad Mohsen Yahya Zayed, to face terrorism charges. US officials suspect Al Moayad of supplying millions of dollars, recruits and weapons to Al Qaeda terror network leader Osama Ben Laden in the years before the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.
Saleh's government has asked Germany to return both men to Yemen. Yemen is currently discussing the men's fate with US officials.
Saleh said a plan to open an FBI office in Yemen was in line with the war on terror, but did not mean there would be a permanent US military presence in the country.
FBI agents have been living in Yemen since the October 2000 bombing of the USS Cole that killed 17 US soldiers.
US agents have also been providing counterterrorism training to Yemeni forces.
But the presence of US military forces in Arab countries has been generally rejected by most Arabs and was cited by Ben Laden as a reason for his terror campaign against America.
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| Earth, a planet hungry for peace |
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| The Israeli apartheid (security) wall around Palestinian population centers (Ran Cohen, pmc, 5/24/03). |
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| The Israeli apartheid (security) wall around Palestinian population centers in the West Bank (Ran Cohen, pmc, 5/24/03). |
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