LISBON - Pop legend and former Beatle Paul McCartneyfaulted Britain for "rushing" into war on Iraq and joined a growing number of critics in comparing the US-led conflict to Washington's disastrous war in Vietnam.

"I think that we acted too rapidly. Our government has perhaps moved too quickly", McCartney told the weekly Visao in comments translated into Portuguese.

"Everything would have been much simpler if things in Iraq had taken place with the backing of the United Nations," he said Thursday.

The singer and songwriter said he "understood armed intervention" in Iraq following the September 11 2001 terrorist attacks in the United States. "Looking for (Osama) bin Laden and going after terrorism seemed reasonable to me.... But now it's more difficult to understand."

"The current situation reminds me of Vietnam", he added, saying that just as during the 1960s-1970s conflict, a watershed event for the American public, "you have the impression that everyone's lost their head and no one remembers the reasons that led to the military operation."

McCartney was in Lisbon for his first-ever performance in the Portuguese capital, as part of the Rock in Rio music festival.

© Copyrigh 2004 AFP

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