Russian President Mr Vladimir Putin cast aside his customary reticence yesterday and ripped into the US over Iraq. He said Washington's attack on Baghdad was unjustified, it undermined global stability and could lead to humanitarian and ecological disaster.
"Military action against Iraq is a big political mistake," said Mr Putin in a broadcast on state television. It contrasted starkly with his previous reserved criticism of US policy on Iraq, where Russian firms feared losing major oil contracts signed with the embattled regime of President Saddam.
"If the rule of might replaces the rule of law . . . then no country can feel safe," he said. "That is exactly why Russia insists on the swift termination of military action.
"There are already victims and destruction. The whole region is threatened by a major humanitarian and ecological catastrophe," Mr Putin said, denouncing the war as "contrary to global public opinion, the principles and norms of international law and the United Nations Charter". The Russian leader told Washington that he had seen no evidence to support US allegations that Iraq was linked to international terror groups, and said the White House's declared intention of removing President Saddam was illegal.
"What's more, up until the start of [military\] operation, Iraq did not represent any danger to its neighbours, or to other countries or regions of the world," he said, while commending UN arms inspectors on their abortive search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and urging Washington to return the crisis to UN control.
Meanwhile, Germany's Chancellor Mr Gerhard Schröder said the US has made the "wrong decision" by launching a war on Iraq, but stopped short of directly criticising the Bush administration. He said "war is the failure of politics" and Berlin's opposition to war was shared by "the large majority of our people, the majority of the Security Council and the majority of all peoples.
"The logic of war has won through against the chance of peace. Thousands of people will have to suffer terribly as a result.
"We tried to stop a war, until the last minute. There could have been another way to disarm the dictator, the United Nations."