New York, Sept 15: US Secretary of State in the Clinton administration Madeleine Albright has criticised President George W. Bush's Iraq and Middle East policies and said she did not view Saddam Hussein as an imminent threat. Bush's action in Iraq has made that country a breeding ground of terrorists, she claims in an interview to a news magazine.
On whether the war made the problem of terrorism better or worse, Albright said, "The administration immediately tied September 11 to Saddam. They said, basically, that Saddam and Iraq were a hotbed of terrorism. While I had many criticisms of Saddam, that's not the way I saw it. But now Iraq is in fact a breeding ground for terrorists." She also described as "mistake" the Bush administration's decision to sideline Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.
"Now, that doesn't mean it's much fun to talk to him (Arafat). I don't think he's a force for good, but he's part of the story," the Czech-born Albright who is shortly releasing her memoirs, said. On whether former President Bill Clinton ignored threat from Osama bin Laden and left it to be cleared up by the bush administration, she said Clinton focused on terrorism from the start. The CIA set up a special bin Laden division, and the President authorized the use of lethal force against him.
"We struck his camp in 1998 after the embassy bombings, and we came close. Bush has been in Afghanistan with 8,000 troops, and they still haven't found him," she adds. Bureau Report