'Bush's psycho war not right'
2002-10-08 20:55
Copenhagen - A former UN aid co-ordinator to Iraq said on Tuesday that Baghdad posed no immediate threat to the international community, labelling any unilateral US action against Iraq a breach of international law.
Neither documents released by the US nor the British governments "provide any evidence whatsoever of the imminence of an international threat posed by the Iraqi government," said Hans von Sponeck in a statement released in Denmark.
The German diplomat resigned two years ago from his post as head of the "oil for food" aid programme in protest at the sanctions on Iraq, which he said were hitting the Iraqi population rather than President Saddam Hussein's regime.
Von Sponeck urged Denmark as the holder of the rotating EU
presidency to persuade other members of the European Union that any unilateral US attack would be contrary to international law.
"The Iraq policy of the US administration has little to do with the return of UN arms inspectors," Von Sponeck said in the
statement.
"It has everything to do with a US determination to introduce a regime change in Baghdad and the longer term interest in retaining US control of energy resources in the Middle East," he added.
The US administration of President of George W Bush, he added,
was causing mass hysteria, saying the "psycho war" was
unacceptable. - Sapa-AFP
- SAPA