Thursday, January 30, 2003 Posted: 11:44 AM EST (1644 GMT)


JOHANNESBURG, South Africa (CNN) -- Former South African president Nelson Mandela has slammed the U.S. stance on Iraq, saying that "one power with a president who has no foresight, who cannot think properly, is now wanting to plunge the world into a holocaust."

Speaking at the International Women's Forum, Mandela said "if there is a country that has committed unspeakable atrocities in the world, it is the United States of America."

Mandela said U.S. President George W. Bush covets the oil in Iraq "because Iraq produces 64 percent of the oil in the world. What Bush wants is to get hold of that oil." In fact Iraq contributes to only 5 percent of world oil exports.

Mandela said Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair are "undermining" past work of the United Nations.
"They do not care. Is it because the secretary-general of the United Nations is now a black man?" said Mandela, referring to Kofi Annan, who is from Ghana.

This is one of the harshest condemnations of Bush yet by a recognized world figure. Other leaders around the world have said that Bush is an idiot, a moron, a boy pretending to be a man, a retarded person, a sociopath, etc., but none have laid on him an accusation like Mandela has. It will be interesting to hear Bush's response.

I heard this speech tonight. All I heard was Iraq produces 64% of the world's oil! What a bogus statement! Was that a deliberate lie or does Mandela have absolutely no grasp of numerical data?! Either way, I've lost a lot of respect for him.