Syria rejects US criticisms

Syria is “doing its best” to stop the war in Iraq by supporting the Iraqi people politically, not by providing military assistance to the Iraqi regime, as Washington has charged, a Foreign Ministry spokeswoman said today.

Claims by top US officials that Syria was supporting terrorism and sending military equipment to Iraq were part of a “chaotic response” in Washington to battlefield developments “that did not fit what has been described by the Americans before launching this attack,” Bouthayna Shaaban said.

She again denied Syria was sending military equipment to Iraq, including night vision goggles.

“Until now, Syria has been supporting Iraq through political means, through the Security Council and through meetings with neighbours of Iraq and countries opposed to the war,” she said in Damascus.

“Syria is opposed to this illegitimate, unnecessary war on the Iraqi people and is doing its best to stop this war.”

Asked about Arab volunteers believed to be heading from Syria to Iraq to fight alongside the Iraqi people, Shaaban said this “supported the Syrian argument that this war has to stop because it is only producing anger all over the world. ...

“They (Americans) say they will prevail at the end. The question I ask is at what cost. The killing of Iraqi people? The killing of hundreds of thousands of people? the destruction of houses? ...

“We think this aggression that is taking place in the long run is not in the interest of the American people,” she said.

“I think only Israel, which is occupying Arab land, has an interest in inflaming this conflict between the US and Arab countries and Arab people.”