March 19, 2003	Wednesday	Muharram 15, 1424

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ISLAMABAD, March 18: The ruling and opposition parties in the National Assembly on Tuesday put aside a bitter controversy over presidential powers to debate the US-threatened war on Iraq, but the government seemed hesitant to take a clear position.

After main opposition parties spoke against the looming war, speaker Chaudhry Amir Hussain adjourned the debate until 5.30pm on Wednesday in an apparent move to allow more time to Prime Minister Zafarullah Khan Jamali to formulate his government’s stance about the American threat.

Leaders from the opposition and treasury benches agreed to try to adopt a consensus resolution before both sides unanimously decided to immediately begin a foreign policy debate centred on Iraq, postponing other business put on the agenda for the first day of a special session of the 342-seat lower house convened on an opposition request.

But the two sides still seemed far from agreeing on the text of a resolution proposed by the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal that sought to condemn the overnight ultimatum by US President George W. Bush to Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and his sons to leave their country or face military action.

All opposition parties blasted what they called a failure of the government’s foreign policy in not being able to prevent war against Iraq, but had varied views about what Pakistan should do now.

While the MMA and Pakistan Muslim League-N came out hard against what they saw as American designs to dominate the world and capture its natural resources, the People’s Party Parliamentarians (PPP) called for diplomatic moves to save Iraq from damage.

Prime Minister Jamali and Foreign Minister Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri sat in the house only briefly during the debate and appeared to have been discussing the Iraqi situation with their cabinet colleagues in the premier’s chamber.

“American designs are a danger to peace and aimed at pushing the whole planet earth into war,” MMA secretary-general Maulana Fazlur Rehman said in a hard-hitting speech.

He said the United States now stood politically and diplomatically isolated in what he saw as its quest to capture the world’s natural resources like oil and urged the Pakistani government to take “a strong stand” to support Iraq in collaboration with other countries opposing the US policy such as Russia, France, China and Germany.

PPP’s Aitzaz Ahsan said Pakistan’s foreign policy had failed because it was controlled by generals and urged Prime Minister Jamali to bring back exiled former prime ministers Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif to create a domestic consensus that could help the country’s future moves to play a leading role in the Islamic world.

He said he was not pleading for a combatant role in an “unprecedented crisis”, but wanted Pakistan to “do good diplomacy and limit damage to Iraq”.

PML-N acting president Makhdoom Javed Hashmi saw the hand of what he described as the US “energy mafia” in the threatened war to disarm Iraq of its alleged weapons of mass destruction, but said the crisis had given Pakistan an opportunity to take a leadership role in the Islamic world.

“Impartiality in war and peace is a crime. We will not be party in this crime when a country is being murdered,” he said.

The session was called on a requisition filed by the opposition parties seeking to discuss foreign policy and focus on their opposition to the LFO decreed by President Pervez Musharraf last November to assume sweeping powers such as remaining president and army chief for five more years, dissolve parliament and sack prime ministers.

But in view of the urgency of the Iraqi situation after the US ultimatum, there was no anti-LFO slogan-chanting that had obstructed the assembly to conduct any business for three successive sittings before it was prorogued on March 10.

However, the opposition leaders said their parties would carry on their protest if the government failed to settle the row through a promised dialogue that is yet to begin.