[Peace] mandela

[Dlind49 at aol.com]

Mandela 'Appalled' by U.S. Policy on Iraq 
By Brendan Boyle
Monday September 2 10:13 AM EST
 
<A HREF="http://ca.news.yahoo.com/020902/5/oox8.html">
http://ca.news.yahoo.com/020902/5/oox8.html</A>


JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - South African statesman Nelson Mandela condemned 
U.S. President George W. Bush's policy on Iraq on Monday, saying he was 
"appalled" by U.S. threats of military action. "What they are introducing is 
chaos in international affairs and we condemn that in the strongest terms," 
Mandela told reporters outside his Johannesburg home. "We are really appalled 
by any country whether it is a superpower or a poor country that goes outside 
the United Nations and attacks independent countries," Mandela said. Bush 
says Iraq is part of an "axis of evil" and that Washington wants a "regime 
change" -- a euphemism for ousting Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. Most of 
America's closest allies have withheld backing for military action against 
Iraq, particularly if there is no mandate from the United Nations. Mandela 
blamed hawks in the Bush administration for the hardline policy over Iraq. "I 
think it is his advisers that are misleading (Bush). The United States must 
be exemplary in everything that they do." Mandela, 84, was South Africa's 
first democratically elected president. He championed the fight against white 
minority rule and spent 27 years in apartheid prisons. "No one must be 
allowed to take the law into their own hands," he said. "The message they are 
sending is that if you are afraid of a veto in the Security Council then you 
can do what you want," Mandela said before talks with French President 
Jacques Chirac, the first of a stream of VIP visitors to pay their respects. 
PHONE CALL TO GEORGE BUSH SENIOR Mandela said he had tried and failed to 
reach Bush by telephone. But he said he had spoken to Secretary of State 
Colin Powell and to Bush's father, former President George Bush, and asked 
him to raise the Iraq issue with his son. Chirac, one of nearly 100 world 
leaders in Johannesburg for the World Summit on Sustainable Development, had 
no comment about Iraq after the talks. But Mandela said they discussed the 
dangers of ignoring the United Nations and taking unilateral action to attack 
Iraq. "I'm glad to say that President Chirac agreed with me completely," he 
said. British Prime Minister Tony Blair has so far been Bush's most 
supportive ally over Iraq. Blair was also in Johannesburg on Monday but made 
no comment on the Iraqi crisis and Mandela's office said he did not seek a 
meeting with the former president. 
 
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