Putin Says U.S. Faces Big Risks in Effort in Iraq

[papau]

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/06/international/europe/06PUTI.html?hp

October 6, 2003
Putin Says U.S. Faces Big Risks in Effort in Iraq
By STEVEN LEE MYERS


OSCOW, Monday, Oct. 6 — President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia says the United States now faces in Iraq the possibility of a prolonged, violent and ultimately futile war like the one that mired the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. In an expansive interview on Saturday evening, Mr. Putin warned that Iraq could "become a new center, a new magnet for all destructive elements." He added, without naming them, that "a great number of members of different terrorist organizations" have been drawn into the country since the fall of Saddam Hussein.To respond to this emerging threat, he said, the Bush administration must move quickly to restore sovereignty to Iraqis and to secure a new United Nations resolution that would clearly define how long international forces remain there. <snip>

Mr. Putin said for the first time that Russia was prepared to offer partial relief on the $8 billion it is owed by Iraq, but only in coordination with other major creditor nations in the Paris Club. The United States has been struggling to persuade its European allies to make significant contributions to the multibillion-dollar rebuilding of Iraq.<snip>

Mr. Hussein's government had, with reason, been called "a criminal one," Mr. Putin said, but he disputed one of the core reasons given by President Bush for attacking Iraq in March: the assertion that it had ties to international Islamic militancy and terrorism. Rather, he suggested that the invasion of Iraq had created a terrorist haven where one did not previously exist.<snip>

[Kusala]

1. ns

http://bragan.blogs.com/braganza/2003/10/puti_polluti.html