The Hindu : 'Iraq will fight back'

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Jan 26, 2003

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'Iraq will fight back'

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI JAN. 25. The Speaker of the Iraqi National Assembly, Sadoon Hammadi, today said his country would "stand up and fight back fiercely'' if it was attacked by the U.S., and ruled out the possibility of the President, Saddam Hussein, going into exile to avoid a war.

Briefing mediapersons here on the current crisis "created by the U.S. administration'', Mr. Hammadi said: "Iraq would use every method to inflict damage on the enemy and we will fight back with all our means. We do not want a war, but if the U.S. attacks Iraq, we have no choice but to stand up and fight.''

The Speaker said speculations about Mr. Hussein going into exile were part of the anti-Iraq propaganda and war of nerves unleashed by America for over a decade now. He said Mr. Hussein enjoyed the absolute support of the people as shown by a recent referendum.

Though he spoke at length about the plight of the Iraqi people because of the 12-year blockade and sanctions — as a result of which 1.7 million people had died and 6,000 children under five die every month because of lack of food and medication — Mr. Hammadi struck a confident note and said the `aggression' on his country would fail.

The U.S. would have to bear the responsibility of waging a "war without justification'' as it was aware that "Iraq has not had any weapons of mass destruction for years''. To a question on how he was so confident given the odds, he said history was with his country. "We are militarily and economically organised to defend our homeland.''

Mr. Hammadi said Iraq expected India to support it and stand firm in the event of a war. But it did not expect any military help, banking more on this country's "influential'' position in the comity of nations. In the case of the Arab world, he said Iraq's neighbours have been supportive but "they can do more''.

Maintaining that Iraq had always cooperated with the weapons inspectors despite misgivings of some of them, Mr. Hammadi said all that his country wanted was for them to do their work in a "professional and honest way''. "They should respect the integrity of Iraq and not interfere in our internal affairs.''

And, to show the scale of the inspections, the Speaker had come laden with statistics as per which 230 inspectors had visited 380 sites till January 17 this year in the second such exercise that began after a four-year-gap last year. In the first eight-year-long inspection, which was called off in 1998, "276 inspection teams consisting of 3,845 inspectors/experts came to Iraq and inspected 3,392 sites repeatedly; adding to a total of 10,266 visits. Besides, they set up permanent monitoring systems at 665 sites. They found nothing then, and they have found nothing now''.

Countering America's propaganda against Iraq, the Speaker said the main reason for the prolonged situation was America's desire to control Iraq's oil reserves — the lone such source out of "direct or indirect'' U.S. control — and thereby control the developed world including Europe and Japan.

Also, according to him, the American administration was being pressurised to go to war with Iraq by the powerful Jewish lobby in the U.S. for his country's strong views on the Arab-Israeli issue.

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