Washington: Describing the US military build-up as "far in excess of what's
reasonable", Iraq has said war is inevitable because of the large-scale troop
mobilisation by America.
"When preparations for war go to this extent, if we go by the First World War and
the Second World War, simply mobilising is enough to make the process irreversible.
After you mobilise, that's it. It takes a momentum of its own," a top adviser to
President Saddam Hussein, General Amir Saadi, told American reporters in Baghdad.
General Saadi said, "One tends to think it (war) is inevitable no matter what we do."
The only way to avert war, he said, is for the US to step back.
"There are things, which can prevent war. For instance, the worsening of the US
economic situation, demonstrations all around the world, countries showing exactly
how they are feeling by talking frankly – not necessarily publicly but behind the
scenes – to the United States to make them come to their senses," he said. "But I
don't think it is up to us."
He indicated that Baghdad now has as little faith in the UN inspectors as the US,
because the inspectors "keep changing the goal posts.
"Their focus on issues such as private interviews and the permission to fly American
U-2 surveillance aircraft over Iraq," he said, "is a ploy to divert attention from
the fact that the inspectors, according to a preliminary report delivered this
month, have not yet found any evidence that Iraq possesses or is developing weapons
of mass destruction."
PTI
