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Bush should heed world opinion for extension of arms inspections in Iraq and no unilateral US war on Iraq without UN authority or he will join Osama bin Laden as the two greatest threats to world peace in the opening decade of the third millennium Media Statement by Lim Kit Siang (Penang,  Thursday): Osama bin Laden, who had been pictured as clawing his way out of various burial holes for the past seventeen months, was splashed in all the international and national media as again taking the international centre stage with his latest 16-minute audio tape - purportedly the ninth recording from al Qaeda received by al-Jazeera, the Arab satellite channel, since the start of the Afghan war. Osama binn Laden seemed to be doing George Bush a great favour, as the US President and his Secretary of State were having a very hard time to prove a link between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda, despite Colin Powell's 80-minute multimedia presentation to the UN Security Council last week. But it is not clear who is doing who a favour, as Bush could not be doing Osama bin Laden a greater favour to fuel worldwide recruits to further the al Qaeda cause of international terrorism than by launching an US-led unilateral war on Iraq without specific United Nations authority. Bush should heed world opinion for extension of arms inspections in Iraq and no unilateral US war on Iraq without UN authority or he will join Osama bin Laden as the two greatest threats to world peace in the opening decade of the third millennium. Today's international media reports that while the Bush administration presses relentlessly to disarm Iraq, by unilateral war if necessary, public opinion polls and newspaper editorials across the United States show Americans are still hoping for a peaceful solution. Although the latest opinion polls show Americans are becoming more favourable to war, half remain wary of waging such a war without international backing. In the United Kingdom, the latest BBC poll showed that fewer than one in 10 of the British public would support a war in Iraq which is not backed by a new United Nations resolution. A British newspaper editorial yesterday even posed the question whether there would be a regime change in Westminster before Baghdad if Tony Blair supports Bush's unilaterial war on Iraq without UN authority, in defiance of majority public opinion in his own party, in Britain and across Europe - with some 80 per cent of West European opinion and more than 70 per cent of opinion in Eastern Europe - opposed to a war against Iraq not mandated by the United Nations. (13/2/2003) * Lim Kit Siang, DAP National Chairman