TEHRAN, 23 August 2003 — Former Iranian President Ali Akbar Rafsanjani called yesterday for the United Nations to replace the coalition in running post-war Iraq to fix the “disaster” left by the US-led administration.
“If the United Nations takes charge in Iraq, then countries like Russia, Germany, France, China, India and the Islamic countries will come to Iraq to find a way to help the region get out of this disaster that the United States has made,” Rafsanjani said during weekly prayers.
“The Iraqi situation is becoming like a puzzle, which has very bad repercussions for the world,” he added. “All the Muslims and the world have to come together to find a logical solution for the Iraqi and the Palestinian issues which have inflamed our region,” he said.
On Thursday, President Mohammed Khatami, reacting to the massive bombing of UN headquarters in Baghdad, said the occupation of Iraq by US-led forces had caused an increase in “terrorism.” The moderate president expressed support for UN efforts in Iraq, and said Tehran also wanted to see peace and stability in its neighbor.
Meanwhile, a senior Iraqi police official has blamed the wave of terror attacks in Iraq on what he said was the United States’ lax attitude toward the vast majority of Saddam Hussein’s Baath party officials, Polish Radio reported yesterday. Gen. Kadim Jabar, who heads some 5,000 officers in the central Iraqi provice of Babil, told the station’s Iraq correspondent that in accordance with orders from the head of the US civil administration in Iraq, Paul Bremer, the police force could not arrest any former Baath party officials apart from the 55 on the most-wanted list. “The rest operate freely and we can do nothing until we catch them red-handed,” Jabar complained.
Jabar claimed that ex-Baath party members still loyal to Saddam were well-armed as they had looted Iraqi Army weapons stockpiles and would continue to mount deadly attacks on US-led coalition soldiers.
Babil province is located within Iraq’s south-central zone which was established by US and British forces following the war which toppled former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein earlier this year. A multinational force of more than 9,000 troops under Polish command is set to take over the zone on Sept. 3.
