Iraq: Bush, not Saddam, should quit
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Iraqi Foreign Minister Naji Sabri said U.S. President George W. Bush should step down, not Saddam Hussein (March 17)
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BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- Iraqi Foreign Minister Naji Sabri ruled out the possibility that President Saddam Hussein would go into exile to avoid war with the United States and its allies, saying Monday that President Bush should resign, instead.
Sabri was speaking before the U.S. president made a televised address Monday night, giving Saddam and his immediate family 48 hours to get out of Iraq or face military action.
Sabri said: "He should go away from the presidency and let the Americans lead an ordinary life with other nations, not a life of aggression, a policy of aggression against other nations.
"This policy has brought about disasters to the U.S. So for the U.S. to live properly with the world and for the world nations to live in peace, this crazy man should go."
The United States and its allies on the U.N. Security Council, Britain and Spain, abandoned efforts to seek U.N. support for military action Monday and declared that the window for diplomacy had closed. Iraq's U.N. ambassador, Mohammed Aldouri, said the U.S. and British move endangered the future of the United Nations.
"They decided to go beyond the United Nations, beyond the Security Council, and this proved the failure of American diplomacy not only here at the United Nations but over the whole world," he said.
Soon afterward, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan ordered all U.N. personnel out of Iraq in preparation for an expected attack. Sabri called that "a quite unfortunate decision" and a violation of the U.N. charter.
"If the U.N. secretary-general withdraws the inspectors from Baghdad ... this means that the secretary-general has abandoned its own responsibility in maintaining peace and security in the world," Sabri said.
