'Saddam message' calls for more strikes on US forces

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Monday, November 17, 2003

'Saddam message' calls for more strikes on US forces

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A newly aired message purportedly from ousted Iraqi President Saddam Hussein called for more attacks against the US-led coalition forces on Sunday, a day after the US-handpicked Iraqi Governing Council (IGC) unveiled a plan which sees the end of occupation next year.

In an audio tape broadcast by Dubai-based al-Arabiya TV channel, a speaker claimed to be Saddam warned the coalition troops "to leave Iraq in order to save their lives."

The voice, which sounded weaker than that of Saddam before the war, called on Mujahdeens to continue to strike the US-led coalition forces and increase their attacks.

Denouncing the US-led coalition as an "evil alliance," the speaker said in Arabic language that the Americans and the British "are frustrated in Iraq... They have no way to continue their occupation."

"The Americans had thought that they might be on a picnic when they invaded Iraq... but they found Iraqi people refused and fought them," he said, adding "the evil found themselves in a dilemma."

He insisted that there had been no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and the Americans and the British found nothing.

The speaker on the tape also called on the Iraqis to kill allthe collaborators with the coalition forces, saying this act of assassination is a legitimate and a religious task.

"Now nobody working with the coalition forces dares to walk in Baghdad streets, or even in an Iraqi town," he said.

"Iraqis' society is a special 'chemical mix' which nobody can discover the secrete of except the believer sons of Iraq," he added.

The latest tape recording, which coincided with the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, was the ninth purported message of the ousted Iraqi leader aired by Arab channels after he was toppled by the coalition forces in April.

In an interview with CNN on Saturday night, US civil administrator in Iraq Paul Bremer said he believed Saddam "is still alive" and hiding in Iraq and will be captured one day.

His words were echoed by Jalal Talabani, the current IGC president, who said the former strongman has no chance in the future of Iraq and "he is finished."

On Saturday, the IGC unveiled a new political transformation plan which envisions a provisional government in place by June 2004. The new government will assume full sovereignty and the state of occupation shall end.

Accordingly, the US-led coalition forces can only keep a degree of presence at the invitation of the new government, Talaban is tressed.

On Sunday, Qatar-based al-Jazeera news channel quoted an unidentified coalition official as saying that the occupation will end at the end of June next year and no foreign troops will stay unless welcomed by Iraqis.

Also on Sunday, Bremer said all the procedures required in the blueprint will be carried out on the basis of an American-style interim constitution which the United States will help draft.

The "bill of rights" will respect values including equality and separation of powers, he said, adding that the provisions will also be embodied in a permanent constitution to be written later.

While the new strategy for a quicker power transfer was believed to be devised in an effort to win the support of the increasingly alienated Iraqi people, it almost fell on deaf ears in the streets.

"It's not the ordinary people who can decide who lead the new government. It's the governing council," said Ahmed Kassim, a fourth-year student at the Collage of Political Science in Baghdad University.

In a curtain shop in an once buzzing street in the capital city, the shop owner who asked his name to be withdrawn, said the resistance is "acceptable to Iraqis" if no civilian casualties are caused.

"Bush is good at making promises, but he never fulfils it," he said, adding "I want to fight although I love peace. I am speaking as an ordinary Iraqi and not as a shop owner."

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