PRESIDENT Rodrigo Duterte again flashed his anti-American streak on Friday night and scored the United States for supposedly enabling global terrorism when it invaded Iraq and started the spread of Islamism to other parts of the world, including the Philippines.
“The Middle East is not the one exporting terrorism to America. America imported terrorism [to the Middle East],” Duterte said at an Eid‘l-Fitr gathering in Davao City on Friday.
“They destroyed Middle East,” he declared, adding that while Saddam was a dictator, he was in control of his country and current investigation even shows that the US had no legal basis to declare war against Iraq, apparently referring to the recently released Chilcot report in Britain.
Duterte said that the decision of the US and the United Kingdom to invade Iraq and other Middle Eastern countries led many Muslims to radicalism.
“Look at Iraq now. Look at what happened to Libya. Look at what happened to Syria. They are being exterminated. They are being bombed and they were pushed to the wall over failed promises,” he said.
Duterte drew parallelisms between the conditions in the Middle East and the Moro rebellion in the country which, he said, stemmed from historical injustices.
“It is a different setup here because these guys are driven to desperation. From Nur [Misuari] to the Abu Sayaff, there is a sufficient semblance. They’re pushed to the wall, then they become radicalized,” he added.
Duterte expressed his views after the publication of the findings of the British public inquiry, headed by Sir John Chilcot, into the United Kingdom’s role in the Iraq War. The inquiry began in 2009 and published only last July 6.
The inquiry was pursued by a committee of Privy Counsellors with broad terms of reference to consider Britain’s involvement in Iraq between mid-2001 and July 2009.
In 2012, the UK government vetoed the release to the inquiry of documents detailing minutes of Cabinet meetings in the days leading up to the invasion of Iraq in 2003, particularly discussions between then US President George Bush and then UK Prime Minister Tony Blair.
Last July 6, Chilcot announced the report’s publication, more than seven years after the inquiry was announced.
