Former attorney-general Dr Oswald Harding has described the conflict in Iraq as one of the most preventable wars in modern times and said the Americans launched it without a clear understanding of the complexities and consequences.

Harding argued that the Americans could not win the war and added that Washington was on the horns of dilemma because “they cannot suddenly withdraw”.

“This was a war of choice. One of the most preventable wars in modern times. Launched in the face of worldwide condemnation,” Harding told Spanish Town Rotarians at their weekly meeting at the Hilton Kingston Hotel last Tuesday.

Harding, a former diplomat, said that because of how America went about the dispute with Iraq, what now exists is an infinite, complex situation where a negotiated solution is unlikely to be reached or even attempted.

He reminded the Rotarians that the United Nations was ignored and that the Bush Administration did not await the findings of International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors in Iraq. “It was a war of shock and awe,” he said. “A war that did not win the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people. There were no weapons of mass destruction found; what is to be found is mass destruction in Iraq, internal chaos, terrorism and regional instability.”

Since the US invaded Iraq in March 2003 on a claim that Baghdad was manufacturing weapons of mass destruction, Iraq has virtually descended into civil war.

Sectarian violence has claimed thousands of lives and the fact that the fighting appears to have no end in sight has badly damaged the George W Bush Administration, which is now arguing with Congress to support President Bush’s proposal to send more US troops to Iraq.

While he was critical of America’s handling of the war, Harding, who now lectures at the University of the West Indies, advised against anti-Americanism.

“The Americans are our friends, their domestic matters are not of our immediate concern, but their international policies are the concern of all the world, and when we disagree with those policies we must tell them so,” he said. “We must not allow our criticism of the present US Administration to be equated with anti-Americanism. There is no profit in anti-Americanism.”

Harding also commented on the spiralling Jamaican crime rate, saying that our major cities seem to be under siege from an intensive crime wave.

“Here, we have our own insurgency,” he said. “Unlike Iraq, where the alleged revolt is to oust the Americans, what is the purpose of our insurgency?” he asked.