Admit Iraq war was illegitimate, Tutu Tells U.S.

IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency

London, Jan. 21, IRNA -- The US-led coalition should admit the war in 
Iraq was illegal to help persuade the people of Iraq that it was 
serious about the future of the country, veteran anti-apartheid 
campaigner, Archbishop Desmond Tutu said Wednesday. 
"I think the coalition would show considerable magnanimity if it 
was, in fact, to acknowledge that in the first place the assault on 
Iraq was wrong," he said. 
Archbishop Tutu, now visiting professor on post-conflict 
societies at Kings College London, said that if the US-led occupation 
were able to admit this it would show "they are not merely concerned 
about face-saving." 
"The fact that the coalition has returned to the UN underscores 
precisely what people kept saying: that if the war was going to be 
legitimate, it needed to be declared by a legitimate authority, in 
this case the UN," he told BBC Radio Four`s Today program. 
His call comes as a United Nations team was set to return to Iraq 
for the first time since the bombing of UN offices in Baghdad in 
August to examine ways to transfer power to an Iraqi government. 
Archbishop Tutu recently chaired South Africa`s Truth and 
Reconciliation Commission. In 1975, he became the first black 
Anglican Dean of Johannesburg. 
Speaking on the same BBC program, Edward Mortimer, an adviser 
to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, said the UN wanted to help in 
Iraq but added that all sides had to understand the nature of the help
on offer and be willing to accept it. 
"In the end, Iraqis and the coalition need to agree on how to 
handle this. I think the fact they have to come to the UN shows they 
recognize they have got to reach agreement," the former journalist 
from the Financial Times said. 
HC/217 
End

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Admit Iraq war was illegitimate, Tutu Tells U.S.