Meanwhile Iraq’s parliament speaker Mahmud Mashhadani accused U.S. forces in Iraq of butchery. At a UN-sponsored conference on reconciliation, Mashhadani said “Just get your hands off Iraq and the Iraqi people and Muslim countries, and everything will be all right.” He went on to say “What has been done in Iraq is a kind of butchery of the Iraqi people.” Mashhadani also criticized US support for the Israeli attacks against Lebanon.