The US should go by the UN resolutions to disarm Iraq and recall the troops if the Security Council decides against the war.

Former ambassador and exvice-chancellor of North South University Muslehuddin Ahmed observed this while giving his keynote address on "The Quest for Peace in Iraq" yesterday at the National Press Club.

The Bangladesh chapter of the South Asians for Human Rights (SAHR) organised the lecture session, which was presided over by Chairman of the Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD) Professor Rehman Sobhan.

In his keynote paper, Musl-ehuddin said the US must not defy the UN and the international will in order to stop Iraqi President Saddam Hossain.

"Dislodging of one man is certainly not worth the terrible sacrifice that the US and the world have to make," he said.

The simple order of President George W. Bush regarding war would kill men, women and children, and devastate Iraq and other countries, he warned.

The US president should also seriously consider the danger to the lives of his own men and women in uniform and lives of the innocent Americans who will surely be targets of attacks in and outside America in the event of a war.

Muslehuddin said information provided by some officials of the Bush administration reportedly revealed that the evidences of Iraqi deceit about weapons of mass destruction, which US Secretary of State Collin Powell would produce on February 5 in the Security Council, were nothing but satellite pictures, tapped phone calls, intelligence reports etc.

"These could not be the basis for a war against a sovereign country," he noted.

He said if the US's goal is to disarm Iraq, the UN arms inspectors should be given the time they need to do the job. If they find some hidden things they can always take them out and destroy them to ensure disarmament, he said.

On the other hand, Iraq should provide all the information to the arms inspectors regarding weapons of any sorts, Muslehuddin said.

Prof. Rehman Sobhan said the US invasion in Iraq would lead to a lawless world. "The immediate causality of the war will be the United Nations and the international laws will cease to be effective."

He said democracy as a whole would be in danger in the event of a war because the majority of the people in the world do not support the war.

The CPD chairman said should a war erupt it would heavily affect the world economy.

"It will bring about negative impact on oil, jobs and the daily life of all countries, specially countries dependent on remittance," he said.

Editor of The Daily Star Mahfuz Anam also spoke on the occasion. Barrister Sigma Huda of the Bangladesh Society for the Enforcement of Human Rights (BSEHR) and a member of the Bangladesh chapter of the SAHR, moderated the function.