March 4, 2003	Tuesday	Zul Hijjah 30, 1423

AMMAN: A US-led attack against Iraq would be a terrible injustice, says Mohammed, a civil servant in the Jordanian capital Amman. He is voluble on the subject of Iraq, believing that the US motive for an attack is to strengthen the predominance of Israel in the region and to gain control over Iraq’s oil.

“We must stand together against this,” he says as his friends nod in agreement. In their opinion the expected war would be an attack against all Arabs.

The current situation in the Gulf puts Jordan in a tricky position, sandwiched as it is between the two focal points of Iraq and Israel. As well as sympathy for the Iraqi people, there is also concern about the negative economic consequences of a war and the possibility of waves of refugees entering the kingdom.

During the previous Gulf War in 1991 up to two million people temporarily sought refuge in Jordan, a country which itself has a population of only about five million. The administration in Jordan officially opposes war but politically it stands close to the US.

Active support for the US troop buildup in the region is inconceivable but so also is a blockade as Jordan relies heavily on US financial aid.

However, the kingdom is also dependent on cheap Iraqi oil imports. As a precaution against such an occurrence Jordan has stockpiled around five million barrels of oil, enough, say the experts, to last two and a half months.—dpa