British MP Condemns US-British Air Strike Against IraqGeorge Galloway, member of parliament of Britain, here on Monday vehemently condemned the US -British air raids against Iraq Friday evening."It is a crime against humanity," Galloway, who arrived in Baghdad early Sunday morning by car from Amman, Jordan, told reporters. While visiting the people wounded in the air strike at the Al- Yarmuk hospital in western Baghdad, he described the joint US- British military actions as "reckless, lawless and murderous." There was no legal authority for the US and Britain to set up the so-called no-fly zones as there were no United Nations resolutions for this, he said. He also "utterly" rejected the excuse given by the US and Britain for the attack. The US and Britain claimed that Iraq had intensified its anti-aircraft fire against their planes patrolling the no-fly zones since this year. Galloway said that such an excuse could not justify the attack. "The truth is, as everyone knows it, that Iraq's anti-aircraft fire is pitifully inadequate to the task of combating the high-tech US and British military jets," he said. US and British planes have been enforcing the two no-fly zones with the claimed aim of protecting the Kurds in the north and Shiite Muslims in the south from the forces of President Saddam Hussein. In an interview with Xinhua, Galloway said he will continue his anti-sanctions efforts until the end. Iraq has been under sweeping U.N. sanctions since its invasion of Kuwait in 1990. Triggered by Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, the US-led multinational forces launched the 1991 Gulf War to eventually evict Iraqi troops out of Kuwait. "We must assume the worst as America and Britain tend to continue the war which has lasted for 10 years," he said. Nlajeeb Jabbo, a surgeon at the hospital, told Xinhua that there are a total of 10 wounded people, including women and children, being treated in the hospital. "All of them are civilians," he said. Ali Baham Ramadan, a wounded college student, was one among the people treated in the hospital. "I was walking in the streets with my mother and sister when the attack came," he said. His mother and sister were also wounded and treated in the same hospital and his mother looks extremely weak. Other wounded people are reportedly being treated in other hospitals. Iraq said that two were killed and 20 others injured in Friday evening's bombardment by the US and Britain, the first such attack outside the no-fly zones in about two years. |
| People's Daily Online --- http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/ |