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Saddam Urges Countries Worldwide to Condemn US Hegemony
Iraqi President saddam Hussein on Wednesday urged countries worldwide to condemn the hegemony of the United States over the collision of a US spy plane with a Chinese jet fighter, the official Iraqi News Agency (INA) reported.
Describing the behaviour of the US as "reckless," Saddam said the US must apologize to China, the INA said.
Saddam made the comment during his meeting with Iraqi Air Force Commander Hamed Rajab Shalah in the day.
Babil, the most influential daily newspaper in Iraq, has criticized that the collision accident showed the character of the US administration under President George W. Bush, which is "making provocations by playing the role of an evil pirate and interfering in the internal affairs of other countries."
As to the 24 US crew members who landed in China's Hainan Island without permission of the Chinese authorities, Babil said that "the U.S. crew did not come as visitors, they came as spies and violated the territorial sovereignty of an independent country."
On April 1, a US EP-3 surveillance plane bumped into a Chinese jet fighter off the coast of Hainan Island in the South China Sea. The Chinese fighter crashed and its pilot is still missing.
While the US plane, without informing Chinese authorities beforehand, intruded China's airspace and made an emergency landing in Hainan.
China held the US fully responsible for the incident and demanded a full apology from the US government to the Chinese people.
After a 10-day standoff between the two sides, US ambassador to China Joseph Prueher submitted a letter to the Chinese side saying the US government was "very sorry" for the intrusion and for China's missing pilot.
China said that out of humanitarian considerations, it has decided to allow the US crew to leave after completing necessary formalities. But the case is not closed yet, and the two sides will continue negotiations on this incident and other related issues.
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