U.S. walks out of Iraq's address to U.N.
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Negroponte, top center, leaves as Mohamed Aldouri, bottom left, speaks.
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SPECIAL REPORT
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UNITED NATIONS (CNN) -- The U.S. delegation to the United Nations walked out of a Security Council meeting Thursday as Iraq's U.N. ambassador was excoriating the United States and Britain for their actions in Iraq.
Mohamed Aldouri of Iraq accused the United States and Britain of "criminal, barbaric" behavior and military aggression "that is killing women, children and the elderly and destroys the life and the future of the people of Iraq. ...
"They previously tried to kill it through weapons sanctions, which lasted more than 13 years," he said. "Through that period a whole generation of children ... were destroyed."
Speaking later to reporters, U.S. Ambassador John Negroponte said, "I'd heard enough. ... I didn't hear anything new and of course don't accept any of the kinds of allegations and preposterous positions that he put forward."
In Baghdad on Thursday, Iraqi Health Minister Umid Midhat Mubarak said more than 350 Iraqi civilians have been killed in the war.
Mubarak accused coalition fighters of targeting Iraqi civilians. "Women and children are being attacked, as soldiers are being attacked," he said.
Aldouri, speaking at the conclusion of a two-day session of the 15-member council, said coalition forces were "about to start a real war of extermination that will kill everyone and destroy everything."
"The warning I would like to make to the members of the august council is that the United States and the British were hoodwinked when they were told that the Iraqi people would receive them with flowers and hugs and ululations, and the children and the mothers will rejoice at the coming of the U.S. forces," he said, at which point Negroponte walked out.
Negroponte speaks at the Security Council meeting before walking out.
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Aldouri went on to say, "The Iraqi army up until now has not confronted the United States forces" -- only "the Iraqi people, the women, the children, the peasants.
"I think this is a British vision, because they are well known for their trickery," Aldouri said. "They kill a person and then they shed crocodile tears, and then they go to his funeral.
"If the humanitarian issue is very important, it is more important" to end the war, he said.
