By K. Lavery & B. Raack, KWMU
St. Louis, MO – The former prime minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, was in St. Louis Wednesday for several speaking events.
Netanyahu told a small audience of students and faculty at Maryville University that the U.S. should not hesitate to launch a military attack on Iraq. He says Saddam Hussein needs to be stopped from amassing chemical, biological and nuclear weapons immediately.
He also says U.N. inspectors will be ineffective because Hussein can hide weapons of mass destruction very easily in a country the size of Iraq.
Meanwhile, A former U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights was in St. Louis last night to be recognized for her leadership in preserving human rights.
Mary Robinson received the University of Missouri-St. Louis' Global Citizen Award. Last year, Robinson oversaw the World Conference Against Racism in Durban, South Africa. The U.S. delegation walked out of that conference in protest; but despite that, Robinson says the U.S. could show enormous leadership in upholding human rights. "It could give leadership in combating xenophobia, anti-Semitism, the Islamophobia that we're seeing in our post September 11 world much more effectively if it subscribed to the follow up to Durban in a very full-hearted way," noted Robinson.
Robinson served as Ireland's first female president from 1990 to 1997.