Arab-American anger over Iraq

ADC is an influential pro-Arab organisation

Arab-Americans gave an angry reception to Undersecretary of State Thomas Pickering when he defended US support for the embargo on Iraq at a convention lunch near Washington.

Mr Pickering was delivering a speech on Washington's Middle East policies at a formal lunch for the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC), one of country's largest Arab-American organisations.

Iraq is no threat to the Arab world, it's Israel

ADC delegate

When the speech turned to UN sanctions on Iraq it was disrupted for several minutes by delegates banging their plates, hissing and booing him.

"Shame, shame on you! How dare you? You want to kill the kids of Iraq. What kind of a human being are you?" one heckler shouted.

Mr Pickering told the audience that lifting sanctions would allow Iraqi President Saddam Hussein to rebuild his military and his weapons of mass destruction programmes.

"Get out!" and "Let the children live!" a group of women shouted.

"I can understand your depth of feeling but I should at least have an opportunity to present a point of view I truly believe in," Mr Pickering said.

"We should each have an opportunity to listen to each other without rancour or clamour."

'Sense of grief'

Mr Pickering ranks third in the State Department hierarchy and has been US ambassador to Jordan and Israel.

Pickering: Expounded US Mid-East policy

He also faced angry questions about the sway of pro-Israeli thinking in the Clinton administration.

"I recognise the deep-seated sense of grief, hurt and disturbance and worse, that people feel for what has happened to them in the Middle East and beyond," he responded.

"I cannot deal with the past. I can only help with the future. I am determined to do that."

It was the first time a State Department official addressed the annual ADC convention.

Another official, deputy Middle East peace mediator Aaron Miller, will probably go ahead with plans to speak to a convention panel on Saturday, an official said.

The State Department has been trying to woo the Arab-American community at the convention by encouraging the younger generation to join the US Foreign Service as diplomats.