cleric                                                                
Beirut, April 6, IRNA -- A prominent Lebanese cleric said here on     
Sunday that Muslims and Arab nations will not recognize a US-installed
government in Iraq after the war.                                     
    Sheikh Muhammed Hussein Fadlallah denounced the US' post-war      
plan for Iraq, reiterating that the Muslim and Arab community will    
confront any plan of the kind that the US is contemplating.           
    The Lebanese alim further denounced pronouncements by US officials
that the coalition will have priority in the post-war reconstruction  
of Iraq.                                                              
    Sheikh Fadlallah noted that Bush administration officials recently
announced that there is no plan to change the historical ruling set-up
in Iraq, which means the Shias will receive no special privileges in  
the next Iraqi regime.                                                
    Washington, intending to obtain a say in the current Iraqi regime,
encouraged Iraq to launch a war against the Islamic Republic of Iran  
in the 1980s and provided it political, economic and military support,
which then paved the way for its invasion of Kuwait, Fadlallah said.  
    He then noted that Iraq's occupation of Kuwait provided the       
pretext for the US to increase its presence in the Middle East region 
by claiming its presence was necessary to defend the Persian Gulf     
sheikdoms from Iraqi aggression.                                      
    Fadlallah said that Washington has since reversed its policy      
in Iraq. It now wants to overthrow its puppet regime there on the     
pretext that it is a danger to its neighbors, citing the two bloody   
wars Iraq waged against Iran and Kuwait, adding that the US has       
launched the current war precisely to bring another puppet to run the 
country.                                                              
    On the incredible resistance of the Iraqi people against the US   
invasion, he said that the US underestimated the Iraqi nation,        
stressing that this nation has proven to be a tremendous force in the 
the way of US and British military operations.                        
FS/LS                                                                 
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