Posted on 03/11/2003 6:14:42 AM PST by Oldeconomybuyer
BAGHDAD, March 11 (AFP) - Baghdad's official press gloated Tuesday over the United States' failure to rally world support for its anticipated invasion of Iraq.
"Developments on the international scene clearly point to the impasse in which the United States finds itself due to the defeat it has suffered at the political, moral and media levels even before carrying out its anticipated aggression against Iraq," wrote the daily Al-Jumhuriya.
Anti-war demonstrations are taking place around the world, "including on the tyrannical US administration's own turf -- in Washington, New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles -- and in the heart of London, seat of (British Prime Minister) Tony Blair," it said.
Yet, "and despite the opposition of UN Security Council members to a new aggressive resolution against Iraq ... the tyrants of the US administration insist on committing the foolishness of attacking Iraq," Al-Jumhuriya said.
Remarks by US national security adviser Condoleezza Rice on Sunday to the effect that Washington would attack Iraq with or without UN approval show that the Bush administration has nothing but "contempt for international law, the UN Charter and Security Council resolutions," the paper said.
The daily Babel, which is run by President Saddam Hussein's elder son Uday, accused the United States and Britain of "trying to turn the Security Council into an instrument of war."
"They are seeking to institute the law of the jungle in the place of international law in a bid to extend US hegemony over the world," the paper charged.
Permanent Security Council members France and Russia served notice on Monday they would veto a US-sponsored draft resolution authorizing the use of force against Iraq unless it disarms by March 17.
Washington has massed more than 250,000 troops around Iraq and is threatening to disarm Baghdad by force and topple Saddam for allegedly concealing weapons of mass destruction.
"At some point, the United States, at a time and place of its choosing, will lead a coalition to disarm Saddam Hussein. And at that point, change its regime," Rice told ABC television on Sunday.
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