The US stance on Iraq is "arrogant" and would cause "a holocaust", Mr Mandela, a Nobel Peace laureate and one of the world's most respected figures, told a forum in Johannesburg.
It pains us to criticize Nelson Mandela, who was once a great man. But because people still take his words seriously--Reuters uses no scare quotes when it calls him "a towering statesman respected the world over"--we must reluctantly point out that in his old age Mandela has turned doddering and incoherent.
"It is a tragedy what is happening, what Bush is doing in Iraq," Mandela said in a speech today in Johannesburg, South Africa. "What I am condemning is that one power, with a president who has no foresight, who cannot think properly, is now wanting to plunge the world into a holocaust."
But according to Reuters, Mandela also "said he would support without reservation any action agreed upon by the United Nations against Iraq."
So it seems Mandela is all for a "holocaust"--provided the French and Germans approve.
Mandela won a Nobel Peace Prize in 1993.