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Iraq Makes Public Official Reply to US Warning
Iraq Thursday made public its official reply to Sunday's stern warning by the US who threatened that Iraq will pay a heavy price for exploiting the crisis over Afghanistan.
According to an official copy obtained by Xinhua, the Iraqi Ministry of Information said that the U.S. had demanded Iraq not to benefit from the situation.
"If you use force against your neighbors, Israel, the Kurdish side, or any other part of the Iraqi people, then we will reply very strongly to defeat you," the copy quoted the U.S. message as saying.
"Any use of weapons of mass destruction against the U.S., our forces, or even our friends and allies will be faced with destructive results. Our reply will be crushing," the U.S. message said.
Iraq's official reply, which was made on Monday, slammed the U. S. stance as "naive, silly and arrogant" and accused the Bush administration of "not learning from lessons in the past."
However, "The contents and timing of your message is irrelevant, because when Iraq has a lost right and finds the right time to retrieve it, it is not afraid of you or others," the official reply said.
"But none of the points mentioned in your message and your warning are on Iraq's agenda," the reply message stressed.
John Negroponte, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, met on Sunday with his Iraqi counterpart Mohammad al-Duri and delivered an oral message to him.
It was believed to be the first top-level direct contact between the two enemies over the past 10 years.
U.S. officials disclosed that Negroponte warned that there are " three red lines" which Iraq must not cross: to threaten its neighbors, to oppress the Kurdish ethnic minority in northern Iraq and to use its weapons of mass destruction.
Moreover, U.S. officials said that there is no connection between the warning to Iraq and a letter conveyed by Negroponte to the U.N. Security Council saying that the war on terrorism might extend beyond Afghanistan.
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