PARIS – The world is a more dangerous place because of the U.S.-led war in Iraq, which may have toppled Saddam Hussein but also unleashed postwar violence and an upswing in terrorism, the French foreign minister said.
"This is a belief that I have never stopped expressing," Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin (search) told Le Monde newspaper in an interview in its Friday edition.
"We have to look reality in the face: we have entered into a more dangerous and unstable world, which requires the mobilization of the entire international community," de Villepin said.
Assertions by the administration of President Bush (search) that ousting Saddam would make the world a safer place proved not to be true, de Villepin said.
"Terrorism didn't exist in Iraq before," de Villepin said. "Today, it is one of the world's principal sources of world terrorism."
De Villepin called again on the United States to respect a June 30 deadline for the Americans to hand over power to the Iraqis.
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