(World news) Arab League firmly rejects US Senate plan to divide Iraq on ethnic, religious lines.
CAIRO - The Arab League on Thursday firmly rejected a US plan to divide Iraq on ethnic and religious lines, lambasting Washington for destroying Iraq and turning it into the main base for Al-Qaeda.
The declaration came after the US Senate on Wednesday passed a non-binding resolution on a Bosnia-style plan to divide Iraq that has been touted as a way out of the sectarian strife rising steadily since the 2003 US-led invasion.
Arab nations should "stand by the Iraqi people to help position them against this plan which is against Arab interests," the League's pointman for Iraq Ali al- Garush told journalists.
"The truth about what America has done is that its weapons have caused massive destruction of Iraq, that it has drawn Al-Qaeda to Iraq and that it has transformed Iraq into the main base for Al-Qaeda," Garush said.
The plan, which is opposed by President George W. Bush's administration, would provide for decentralizing Iraq in a federal system as permitted by Iraq's constitution to stop the country from becoming a failed state.
It proposes to separate Iraq into Kurdish, Shiite and Sunni entities, with a federal government in Baghdad in charge of border security and oil revenues.
Meanwhile, the White House on Thursday shrugged off US Senate approval of the Bosnia-style plan to divide Iraq on ethnic and religious lines, saying the non-binding measure would not change US policy.
"It's not something that shifts policy in Iraq," spokesman Tony Fratto said.
"I actually don't think it's as significant a vote as some have made it out to be," said Fratto , who noted that the amendment was a symbolic "sense of the Senate" measure with "nothing binding about it."
"The concept of federalism has always been part of the construct in Iraq. It's part of their constitution. The UN Security Council resolutions on Iraq talk about a federal, democratic Iraq," said Fratto .
"Everyone has views of what might be the best way to proceed in Iraq. But clearly those decisions have to be made by the people of Iraq and they cannot be imposed by foreign countries, and certainly not us," said Fratto .