Papers castigate US and Saddam

Many Arab newspaper editorials are stridently anti-war and anti-American, but there is little support for Saddam Hussein and his regime, and many commentators blame Saddam and his Government for policies that led to his predicament.

Writing in the official Egyptian Government daily, Al-Ahram, D. Ali Al-Samman puts the blame squarely on Hussein. "It is not possible to separate the current crisis from the crisis and the Gulf war of 1991.

"The first and only responsibility for initiating the aggression, attack and occupation of Kuwait without any justification other than the desire for expansion and hegemony and the violation of international and Arab legitimacy came from those who ruled Baghdad."

An editorial in the Saudi Government daily, Al Watan, seeks to dispel the notion prevalent in the Arab press that America plans to redraw the Middle East map.

"Saddam Hussein has exceeded the boundaries of the international political and military game ... Iraq is not like Saudi Arabia or Egypt.

"These two countries are stable countries in terms of regime, economy, and political and religious harmony [and] have immunity that protects them from conspiracies regarding the redrawing of the region's map. This immunity does not exist with regard to Iraq."

In the Lebanese daily, Al-Safir, editor Talal Salman wrote: "George Bush loves fire games. Instead of offering his mother flowers during the holiday he offers burned cities from far, far away ... yesterday he let go of his gigantic air fleets, those seen exceeding sound barriers and those like ghosts which cannot be seen dump their bombs which weigh tons over the dreams of the children."

Iraqi television has shown dozens of "suicide volunteers" from neighbouring Arab countries marching and training, jumping with parachutes, and firing shoulder rockets.

Muhammad Ridha said: "I left behind in Egypt four daughters and a son. I came to fight [the war of] jihad and I take an oath in front of the leader Saddam Hussein that I will die as a martyr and that I do not want to return to Egypt. I say to all the Arabs and Muslims that jihad is our duty."

A volunteer suicide-fighter from Syria said: "This land is the land of the prophets and is the natural treasure of the Arabs. The Americans, Zionists and the British want to control the oil and the natural resources of the Arab world. We will be the drawn swords in the hand of the jihad fighter Saddam Hussein."

Another Syrian suicide volunteer said: "Listen, O Bush, and listen America, we are not the aggressors, you ... came here to slaughter our children and our women, and the most important thing that they came for is this religion."

The Egyptian Government-sponsored daily Al-Akhbar said the world was now in the hands of a devil called the United States of America. The devil had "decided to act unilaterally outside the international legitimacy based on the unprecedented power under his control".

The Saudi daily Al-Watan blamed the war on the policies of an Iraqi leadership which participated in "reckless behaviour". These policies, reported the paper, "are not useful in dealing with a unipolar [power] which the Iraqi abilities are unable to confront".

Writing about "bankruptcy and war", the Syrian Government daily, Al-Thawra, cited American corporations' bankruptcy as the primary reason for the United States' drive to control Iraq's great oil wealth.

The Jordanian daily Al-Ra'i, wrote: "The world has not witnessed such blatant aggression since the days of the Tartars. Under the pretext of liquidating the alleged weapons of mass destruction, the US will use weapons of mass destruction."

The daily Al-Khaleej, published in Dubai, attributed the "debasement" of American policy to President Bush's religious beliefs which had rendered his speeches more like "preaching than political directions and analysis".