Political parties, media worldwide slam U.S.-led war in Iraq

www.chinaview.cn 2008-03-21 21:25:55

BEIJING, March 21 (Xinhua) --

Political parties and mass media around the world lashed out at the U.S.-led war in Iraq on the occasion of the fifth anniversary of the beginning of the war, which fell on Thursday.

Iraq is in a "shocking" state five years after a U.S.-led coalition invaded the country, Australian Democrats leader Lynn Allison said Thursday.

"I'm not sure that I could've predicted that it would still be going on, five years on," Senator Allison said. "But we all knew that this wasn't going to be a war in which you could move in with shock and awe and bomb the country, destroy its infrastructure, walk away and expect that democracy would make it a safe place to be."

"We all owe a great deal to Iraq to help restore their country, but the signs are not looking good for that being possible any time soon," she said.

Australian Greens leader Bob Brown said his party had always been against the Iraq war.

"This has been a monstrous mistake by George Bush, John Howard, Tony Blair and the others who were involved in it," he said.

"The appalling death toll including tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of innocent Iraqi civilians is going to keep going... It's time for an end to the occupation of Iraq and for the Iraqis to sort out their own future," Brown said.

Australia's Nationalist Party and Family First Party, among others, also denounced the Iraq war in statements on Thursday.

The leading newspaper in Saudi Arabia, Al-Riyadh released a commentary on the front page Wednesday, noting that the Iraqi situation has not improved for the past five years but is becoming more insecure. The U.S.-led invasion should take major responsibility for the scenario.

The article said solving the Iraqi issue only relies on the Iraqi people. Only when various political factions can bridge their differences through dialogue and realize reconciliation as soon as possible, Iraq will usher in a bright future.

The Saudi Arabian newspaper Al-Watan said the Iraqi people have led a panic-filled and miserable life and suffered from poverty since the outbreak of the Iraqi war five years ago. The U.S.-led invasion and occupation does not bring any benefit to them, and the Bush administration's promise and gloss cannot cover up facts of war crimes.

The Al-Youm newspaper in Saudi Arabia stressed that the facts in Iraq or Afghanistan both proved that the U.S.-led war against terror cannot achieve any result. Indulging in wars of aggression only bring more suffering for local people.

Japan's newspaper The Asahi Shimbun said: "Five years have elapsed since the start of the Iraq war, but there are people who are still trying to justify this historic blunder."

"The justification for this war, which Bush used to argue fervidly, has since evaporated completely," the paper said in an editorial on Tuesday.

"Contrary to the Bush administration's insistence, the weapons of mass destruction did not exist. And hardly anybody is talking anymore about the once-popular slogan of 'democratizing the MiddleEast,'" it said.

"Japan certainly bears a part of the blame for supporting this war," and "the United States must get over its major blunder in Iraq and find a way out," it added.

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