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Saddam Vows to Continue Battling Against "Evil Aggressors"
Despite Iraq's 11-year conflicts with the US, President Saddam Hussein on Wednesday vowed to continue battling against "evil aggressors," in a televised address marking the 13th anniversary of the end of the 1980-88 Iraq-Iran war.
In the annual "grand victory day" speech, Saddam said that Iraq won a victory over the US and its allies in the 1991 Gulf War, which he termed as "the immortal mother of all battles," the official INA news agency reported.
He also reviled as "a hair in the tail of a treacherous biting dog" the countries allied with the U.S. against Iraq in the Gulf War, triggered by Iraq's 1990 invasion of neighboring Kuwait.
The U.S. and its Western allies have been pursuing a containment policy combining economic sanctions with military strikes against Iraq since the Gulf War.
Iraq will emerge victorious in its fight against the aggressors, Saddam said, adding that the victory must be achieved "under the supervision of an experienced, devoted, open-minded, potent and faithful leadership."
There have been rumors that Saddam, who took power in 1979, is considering to hand over the leadership to his second son Qusay. The 34-year-old Qusay has entered the inner circle of the Iraqi leadership.
The remarks came amid mounting tensions between Iraq and the U. S. and widespread speculations that the U.S. might launch fresh military attacks against Iraq, which remains defiant despite years of economic sanctions and the U.S. military pressure.
Pentagon officials have disclosed that the U.S. was drawing up plans to attack Iraq in response to its stepped-up campaign to shoot down a coalition plane patrolling the so-called two no-fly zones in northern and southern Iraq.
The exclusive zones, set up by the U.S.-led Western allies after the 1991 Gulf War with the claimed aim of protecting the Kurds in the north and Shiite Muslims in the south from the persecution of the Iraqi government, have been used by the U.S. to contain the Saddam regime.
Pentagon officials announced last month that Iraq's anti- aircraft artillery nearly hit a high-flying U-2 spy plane. The U.S. has since toughened retaliation rhetoric.
On Tuesday, U.S. warplanes pounded Iraqi air defenses in northern Iraq in response to Iraqi missile attacks against coalition aircraft patrolling the northern no-fly zone.
During the lengthy speech, Saddam also claimed that Iraq achieved a victory over Iran in the eight-year war, praising the " great people of Iraq and the valiant armed forces" in the fighting.
"From September 4, 1980, the Iranian aggression started as an organized military aggression with the shelling of (Iraqi) towns, villages and economic establishments," he said, adding that nonetheless, Iraq achieved "a manifest victory."
The two neighbors engaged in the long-standing and bitter war, which claimed some 1 million lives and devastated their respective economies. After 13 years of ending the war, they have been unable to sign a peace treaty so far.
Last month, the two countries accused each other of lacking the "political will" to settle the outstanding problems between them.
The normalization of bilateral ties have been hampered by the issue of prisoners of war (POW) and alleged support by the rival governments for each other's opposition groups.
Iran says that more than 3,000 Iranian POWs are still being held by Iraq, while Iraq claims that 29,000 Iraqi soldiers are kept in Iranian prisons.
During the speech, Saddam also called on the Palestinians to continue their uprising against Israel's occupation.
US Turns Down Saddam's Warning on Flights Over Iraq The Bush administration turned down Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's warning of ending flights of US warplanes over "no-fly" zones in Iraq on Wednesday.
"We plan to continue to police the no-fly zones and we continue to maintain that we will respond at a time and place of our choosing to threats against our pilots," Pentagon spokeswoman Victoria Clarke said.
"If he were not threatening coalition aircraft, those responses would not be necessary," Clarke said.
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