Mubarak: US faces a 'real dilemma' in Iraq

By JERUSALEM POST STAFF
The US faces a "real dilemma" over whether to remain in Iraq or immediately pull out, Egypt's president said in an interview published Sunday. "The current situation in Iraq represents a real dilemma, because if the coalition troops withdraw right away, the situation will deteriorate even more; if they stay, the resistance will escalate against the foreign presence," President Hosni Mubarak told the semi-official Al-Ahram daily. "I trust that Iraq will pass through its ordeal, and coalition forces are not going to stay in forever," Mubarak said. They will "withdraw when Iraqis complete rebuilding the armed and police forces capable of imposing law and order." The best way to achieve this is by means "far from sectarianism and foreign influence and intervention." "I warned against the war in Iraq," Mubarak said. "The current situation in Iraq, saddens me as well as any Egyptian and Arab." On Saturday, A prominent Sunni religious leader wanted by Baghdad for inciting terrorism warned Arab governments and the international community that Iraq's escalating sectarian violence will spread throughout the Mideast unless they withdraw their support for the Shiite-led government there.