China slams scheming US plans for an Iraq after Saddam

AFP Thursday 9 January 2003, 4:04 PM

Official Chinese media stepped up the rhetoric against Washington, slamming scheming US plans for an Iraq after Saddam Hussein, which it said were illegal.

Even if there has to be a war, no matter in whose name, the United States has no authority, legal or moral, over the fate of Iraq as a sovereign state, the English-language China Daily said in an editorial.

Whether Saddam chooses to go into exile or the Iraqis decide to abandon him, it is none of the US president’s business.

The New York Times reported this week that President George W. Bush’s national security team was assembling final plans for administering and democratizing Iraq once Saddam Hussein is ousted.

This would include a heavy military presence in the country, military trials of senior Iraqi leaders and a quick takeover of the nation’s oilfields to pay for reconstruction, the paper said, quoting administration officials.

The truth is the planned US military presence is unnecessary and the country of Iraq does not have to be stabilized until it is unstabilized, the China Daily said.

It also blasted US and British sabre-rattling while UN weapons inspectors were still in the country, saying it was becoming clear that the real issue was the removal of Saddam, not weapons of mass destruction.

They (weapons inspectors) are among the world’s best in their respective fields armed with the most sophisticated equipment created, it said.

Still, their tenacious combing yields no evidence to prove Baghdad’s alleged possession of arms of mass destruction.

That means the legal base US President Geroge W. Bush and his followers are trying to build to justify their lustful aggression towards Iraq and oust President Saddam Hussein is falling apart.

It is increasingly clear that the real thorn in the United States’ side is Saddam, rather than the alleged existence of weapons of mass destruction.

China has repeatedly called for a diplomatic and political end to the issue within the framework of the United Nations.