Syria backs Iraqis against ‘illegal’ invasion

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Syria backs Iraqis against ‘illegal’ invasion

Powell warns Damascus that it faces ‘critical’ choice ­ and warns of ‘consequences’

Compiled by Daily Star staff

 

DAMASCUS: Syria said Monday it had chosen to support the Iraqi people against the “illegal” US-British invasion of Iraq, defying a new warning against Damascus from US Secretary of State Colin Powell.

“Syria has chosen to align itself with the brotherly Iraqi people who are facing an illegal and unjustified invasion and against whom are being committed all sorts of crimes against humanity,” a Foreign Ministry spokesman said.

In the latest shot of the growing war of words between the two countries over Iraq, Powell said that “Syria now faces a critical choice. Syria can continue direct support for terrorist groups and the dying regime of Saddam Hussein, or it can embark on a different and more hopeful course.

“Either way, Syria bears the responsibility for its choices, and for the consequences,” he said.

Adding fuel to the fire, a senior Israeli intelligence officer told a parliamentary committee in Jerusalem that Iraqi chemical and biological weapons may be hidden in Syria, Israeli public radio said.

“It is possible Iraq transferred missiles and weapons of mass destruction to Syria,” General Yossi Kupperwasser told the committee Monday.

He said the transfer could be one explanation as to why US-led forces scouring suspect sites in western Iraq had found nothing so far, the radio said.

Kupperwasser also estimated the chances of Israel being attacked by Iraq, as happened in the 1991 Gulf War, as slim but warned that the regime of President Saddam Hussein could still try to strike once it sensed it was about to lose its fight against US-led forces.

Powell also warned Iran, saying that as part of its strategy in combating terrorism, Washington was “demanding more responsible behavior” from “states that do not follow acceptable patterns of behavior.”

Washington considers Syria and Iran state sponsors of terrorism, and though Syria is not included with Iran, Iraq and North Korea in President George W. Bush’s “axis of evil,” it fears it is already being lined up for US attention after Iraq.

The Syrian spokesman said Powell, “like the whole world, knows that Syria has chosen to be with international legitimacy represented by the United Nations and the Security Council, whose role it is to preserve world peace and security.”

Syria, one of the rotating non-permanent members of the Security Council, “has chosen to be with the international consensus which has said no to aggression against Iraq, the bombardments of cities, the massacre of innocent civilians, the destruction of houses, power plants and water stations,” the spokesman added.

The spokesman emphasized that Powell was speaking to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, saying he was clearly “affirming that all the actions of the US administration in the region serve Israeli interests and plans and satisfy (Israeli Prime Minister) Ariel Sharon. The officials of this administration are thereby obtaining good conduct certificates from Israel and its supporters in the United States.”

The US charges also drew reaction from Arab League Sec-

retary-General Amr Moussa, who expressed concern that “such accusations will only inflame the situation further,” the English-language Egyptian Gazette reported Monday.

“No evidence has been presented to support this accusation,” he added.

Syrian Foreign Minister Farouk al-Sharaa told Parliament at the weekend that “Syria’s interest is to see the invaders defeated in Iraq,” according to Monday’s official press.

“The resistance of the Iraqis is extremely important,” he said. “It is a heroic resistance to the US-British occupation of their country.”

Sharaa said Washington justified its invasion as a war of “liberation and preservation of democracy and human rights, while it is killing and destroying.”

US and British troops “have been shocked by the welcome from the Iraqis, who have not received them with flowers but protests and a fierce resistance against their deceitful slogans,” he added.

US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said Friday that “we have information of shipments of military supplies crossing the border from Syria into Iraq.” The deliveries, which he said included night-vision goggles, “pose a direct threat to the lives of coalition forces.”

“We consider such trafficking as hostile acts and will hold the Syrian government accountable,” Rumsfeld charged.

He declined to say whether the Syrian government was behind the shipments, but stressed: “They control their border. We’re hopeful that kind of thing does not happen again.

“There is no question but that to the extent military supplies, equipment or people move across borders between Iraq and Syria that it vastly complicates our situation.”

A senior US commander, Brigadier General Vincent Brooks, said Monday that to his knowledge US forces had so far encountered no Iraqi troops carrying night-vision goggles.

Meanwhile, some 400 Syrian women chanted anti-US slogans during a demonstration in downtown Damascus Monday. The women were waving Syrian, Iraqi and Palestinian flags as they marched in the protest held near a district in the capital housing several Arab embassies.

More than 100 baton-wielding riot police surrounded the area. ­ Agencies