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Mandela Blasts Bush on Iraq, Warns of 'Holocaust'

Thu Jan 30, 7:53 AM ET  Add World - Reuters to My Yahoo!

By Toby Reynolds

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - Former South African President Nelson Mandela
lashed out at U.S. President George Bush's stance on Iraq on Thursday,
saying the Texan had no foresight and could not think properly.

Reuters Photo

  Mandela Criticises Bush, Blair on Iraq
(AP Video)

Mandela, a towering statesman respected the world over for his fight against
Apartheid-era discrimination, said the U.S. leader and British Prime
Minister Tony Blair (news - web sites) were undermining the United Nations
(news - web sites), and suggested they would not be doing so if the
organization had a white leader.

"It is a tragedy what is happening, what Bush is doing in Iraq," Mandela
told an audience in Johannesburg. "What I am condemning is that one power,
with a president who has no foresight, who cannot think properly, is now
wanting to plunge the world into a holocaust," he added, to loud applause.

"Both Bush as well as Tony Blair are undermining an idea (the United
Nations) which was sponsored by their predecessors," Mandela said. "Is this
because the secretary general of the United Nations (Ghanaian Kofi Annan
(news - web sites)) is now a black man? They never did that when secretary
generals were white."

Mandela said he would support without reservation any action agreed upon by
the United Nations against Iraq, which Bush and Blair say has weapons of
mass destruction and is a sponsor of terror groups, including Osama bin
Laden (news - web sites)'s al Qaeda network.

The United States has promised to reveal evidence that Iraqi President
Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) has breached U.N. resolutions, a charge
Iraq denies.

Mandela said action without U.N. support was unacceptable and set a bad
precedent for world politics.

"Are they saying this is a lesson that you should follow, or are they saying
we are special, what we do should not be done by anyone," he said in his
speech to the International Women's Forum on the theme of Courageous
Leadership for Global Transformation.

Nobel Peace Laureate Mandela, 84, has spoken out many times against Bush's
stance, and South Africa's close ties with Libya and Cuba irked Washington
during Mandela's own presidency.

He also attacked the United States's record on human rights, criticizing the
dropping of atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagaski in
World War II.

"Because they decided to kill innocent people in Japan, who are still
suffering from that, who are they now to pretend that they are the policeman
of the world?..." he asked.

"lf there is a country which has committed unspeakable atrocities, it is the
United States of America...They don't care for human beings."

But he said he was happy that people, especially those in the United States,
were opposing military action in Iraq.

"I hope that that opposition will one day make him understand that he has
made the greatest mistake of his life," Mandela said.