By Hamdi Al-Husseiny, IOL correspondent

CAIRO, January 2 (IslamOnline) – The United States is determined to implement its military threats against Iraq in a matter of days or few months to topple the Iraqi regime and use Baghdad as a base to impose more hegemony on the Middle East, said a former U.N. secretary-general on Thursday, January 2.

The Western and American media succeeded in making their audiences believe that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein is just another version of Osama Bin Laden, leader of al-Qaeda network, although there is no link whatsoever between the two, Boutros Ghali said in an exclusive interview with IslamOnline.

"Linking Saddam and Bin Laden is as wrong and unfounded accusation as linking between Iraq and terrorism," he added.

Ghali denied that Washington’s goal from the looming war on Iraq is to control oil resources.

"The U.S. is already in full control of the destiny of this region without burdening itself with a war that is not only extremely costly, but also opposed by world countries," he said.

The former U.N. chief accused the Zionist media of being behind the deliberate association between terrorism and Islam, adding that no religion is the cause or basis of terrorism.

"Terrorism is not linked to any specific religion or race. There is a Jewish terrorism in the occupied Palestinian territories, a Christian terrorism in Ireland and Spain, as well as a Hindu terrorism," he said.

Moving to the Middle East crisis, Ghali said that the complications of this crisis stem from the fact that it is an international conflict that has a one biased mediator, namely, the United States.

"Being totally biased towards Israel, the U.S. refuses any European involvement in the Middle East peace process, and that is why the Palestinian is subjected to an American will controlled by Israeli interests," Ghali said.

The Israeli atrocities against the Palestinian people and the resistance operations against the Israeli civilians have brought the region to a situation similar to the one before late Egyptian President Anwar Al-Sadat, he said.

Both parties will a very need time to return to the negotiation table, especially after the deliberate Israeli destruction of the Palestinian authority, he added.