Kadafi Sees Iraq as Future U.S. Friend
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NICOSIA, Cyprus — Libyan leader Moammar Kadafi, comparing Iraqi President Saddam Hussein to Egypt’s slain leader Anwar Sadat, said Sunday that Iraq might emerge from the Persian Gulf crisis a friend of the United States and Israel.
“History always repeats itself,” Kadafi said in a speech to political science students at Fatah University in Tripoli.
He said President Sadat, gunned down by Muslim zealots in 1981, entered the 1973 Arab-Israeli War a sworn enemy of the United States and Israel, as Iraq is now. “He (Sadat) emerged from the war their closest friend,” he said.
Sadat and Kadafi became arch-enemies shortly after that war because of ideological and other issues.
“Iraq can one day be another Egypt . . . whether the confrontation over Kuwait ends peacefully or through war,” said Kadafi, quoted by the official Libyan news agency Jana.
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