Iranian President Blasts Bush, Afghan War

Via NY Transfer News * All the News That Doesn't Fit

AP via Yahoo - June 4, 2002

Iran's Khamenei Accuses US of Murder

By AFSHIN VALINEJAD, Associated Press Writer

BEHESHT-E-ZAHRA, Iran (AP) - Iran's supreme leader accused the United
States on Tuesday of "massacring" innocent Afghans during its war on
terrorism, and said Iran was ready to fight if attacked.

Addressing thousands of people on the 13th anniversary of the death
of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the father of Iran's 1979 Islamic
revolution, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said the United States launched
the war in Afghanistan (news - web sites) to get rid of Sept. 11
terror suspect Osama bin Laden (news - web sites) and his al-Qaida
organization, but instead massacred civilians.

"In Afghanistan, in the poor and wronged country of Afghanistan, they
entered the arena under the guise of combating a group or even a few
individuals. They did not get their hands on those individuals, but
they massacred many innocent people, bombarded them, killed them,"
Khamenei said. "...This imposition of violence or expression of
violence cannot help America achieve its aims and succeed."

In Washington, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer (news - web sites)
said, "The United States helped liberate the Afghani people from
repression."

Fleischer noted that Iran played a constructive role in the Bonn
talks in December that established the interim Afghan administration
and "we expect them to play a constructive role now."

But amid chants of "Death to America," on Tuesday, Khamenei called
the United States "the most hated regime in the world."

Cars and buses carrying Iranians from around the country jammed the
highway leading to the glittering, golden-domed shrine of Khomeini,
where Khamenei spoke.

Iran and the United States have had no relations since the 1979
revolution, when militants stormed the U.S. Embassy in Tehran and
held 52 Americans hostage for 444 days.

Khamenei, who has the final say on all matters, has repeatedly ruled
out talks with Washington, despite calls by some reformist lawmakers
that the issue of U.S.-Iran relations be decided in a referendum.

The United States accuses Tehran of seeking nuclear, biological and
chemical weapons. President Bush (news - web sites) has lumped Iran
together with Iraq and North Korean in what he says is an "axis of
evil" threatening world peace.

"If a dramatic event comes about, which makes the people of Iran feel
that they have to come into the arena with their bodies and lives,
all the eyes of the world will see that the people's enthusiasm and
eagerness will be even greater than in the imposed Iran-Iraq war,"
Khamenei said, referring to his country's 1980-88 war with
neighboring Iraq that left more than 1 million people dead or
wounded.

"What the enemy should know is that by using this arrogant rhetoric,
they cannot force the Iranian nation to surrender," he said, in an
apparent reference to the United States.

 
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