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Saudi: US fighting 'colonial war' The United States is fighting an old-fashioned "colonial war" in Iraq that is fueled by its desire for Iraqi oil, the Saudi ambassador to Britain and Ireland was quoted as saying.
In an interview published Monday in the Irish Independent newspaper, Prince Turki al-Faisal likened the U.S.-led invasion and occupation of Iraq to centuries of incursions by the West into the Middle East.
"No matter how exalted the aims of the U.S. in that war, in the final analysis it was a colonial war very similar to the wars conducted by the ex-colonial powers when they went out to conquer the rest of the world," al-Faisal was quoted as saying. "Either in the name of Christianity, or bringing civilization to undeveloped countries, or bringing the rule of law to uncivilized populations."
The ambassador, a former head of Saudi intelligence agencies, said some American congressmen had spoken openly about hopes that "in a year or two they would be producing so much oil in Iraq that, as it were, the war would pay for itself."
This "indicated that there were those in America who were thinking in those terms of acquiring the natural resources of Iraq for America," the ambassador was quoted as saying.
In the same interview, the prince also was quoted as describing Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat as a "living martyr" and Israel as "an aggressor and colonial power that is ruthless and generally devoid of any human considerations towards the aspirations of the Palestinian people." |
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