Robert Mugabe used a United Nations platform yesterday to compare George W. Bush and Tony Blair to Europe's fascist-era leaders. Speaking in Rome at a 60th anniversary ceremony of the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) yesterday, the Zimbabwean president called the US and UK leaders "international terrorists" for launching the war in Iraq.

"Must we allow these men, the two unholy men of our millennium, who in the same way as Hitler and Mussolini formed their unholy alliance, formed an alliance to attack an innocent country?" news agencies quoted Mr Mugabe as saying. "We did not agree with Saddam Hussein, but we accorded to the people of Iraq their right to decide who should lead them."