Invasion put Iraq at centre of war against terrorism, says Hurd
IRNA
London, Dec 4, IRNA -- Former Foreign Secretary Lord Hurd cautioned both Britain and the US Thursday on exacerbating the war against terrorism and on making ordinary life impossible in the search for a "mythical security." Hurd blamed their joint invasion for putting Iraq at the centre of the war against terrorism and drew a distinction between the pronounced views of Prime Minister Tony Blair and Foreign Secretary Jack Straw over the issue. "The prime minister has said Iraq is at the centre of the war against terrorism. He is right - Britain and America made it so by attacking it," he said. But in contrast, the former Conservative foreign secretary said that unlike Blair, Straw "did not pretend that the invasion of Iraq was part of the war against terrorism" and had separated the two issues. "When the Americans kill 16 civilians in the streets of Falluja and a few weeks later kill eight friendly Iraqi policemen in the same town, you do not have to invoke al-Qaeda or shadowy Syrians to explain terrorism," he said. "As long as the occupying army is killing and being killed by Iraqis, it will be more difficult to rally Muslim opinion against terrorism," Hurd warned. In an article for the Financial Times, he also criticised the extreme measures making ordinary life in Britain and the US impossible and damaging personal, professional relations between countries in "the search for a mythical security". The former foreign secretary praised Straw for saying that people should be given the facts to make up their own minds in the face of terrorist threats. But he warned that he hoped the British government was "not now studying the Foreign Office proposals that would turn our embassies into fortresses, symbols of fear not friendship". HC/BH/215 End
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