US may install Jordan’s king to rule Iraq, claims Fisk
Mr Fisk was commenting on the US plan to rule Iraq if it topples Saddam Hussein, as revealed in the New York Times.
In a public lecture on War and Peace at UCC, Mr Fisk said the report also revealed the US is planning to set up a war crimes tribunal to deal with Iraqi leaders.
The Bush plan is to have post-war occupation in Iraq on the same lines as the US occupation of Japan after World War II, Mr Fisk said.
"The one unifying sovereign symbol which the US had in Japan amid the ashes of defeat was their Emperor Hirohito who fronted the American occupation.
"But there would be no such unifying force in a post-war Iraq because undoubtedly Saddam would be sent to the war crimes tribunal," Mr Fisk said.
That is where King Abdullah of Jordan, head of the Hashemite royal family would come in, as he could provide the unifying force the US would need.
This would also suit King Abdullah because the Hashemite family ruled Iraq up to just before World War II when they were overthrown in a coup d'etat.
"King Abdullah could be very tempted by this offer to regain his family's territory," Mr Fisk said.
The distinguished war correspondent believes the main motivation for the US going to war with Iraq is oil and not as it claims Iraq's alleged store of mass destruction weapons.
"This war is just about oil, if America wins their new puppet government will have the lucrative picking of Iraq's large oil reserves," Mr Fisk said.
Robert Fisk was one of the few western journalists who interviewed Osama Bin Laden before the attack on New York on September 11 last year.
Bin Laden's last words to him in 1997 were: "From the mountain that you are sitting on we defeated the Soviet Union I pray to God that he allows us to turn America into a shadow of itself."
Robert Fisk was the guest lecturer in the President's Lecture series, hosted by Gerard Wrixon.
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