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Attack will be a failure: Saddam

Iraqi military women with their weapons during a parade in Baghdad on Thursday. — AP

BAGHDAD Aug. 8. The Iraqi President, Saddam Hussein, said today he was not frightened by U.S. threats to topple his administration and warned that those who attacked Iraq would be "digging their own graves".

Marking the anniversary of the end of the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war, Mr. Hussein said any attack on one Arab country was an attack on the whole Arab nation, and Arabs would emerge victorious.

"The forces of evil will carry their coffins on their backs, die in disgraceful failure, taking their schemes back with them, or digging their own graves," Mr. Hussein, 65, said.

Any invaders would "bring death to themselves" in the Arab world, "including Iraq, the land of the jihad (Holy War) and the (Muslim) banner", he added. Mr. Hussein saluted Palestinians, who began an uprising in 2000 against Israeli occupation, and other Holy Warriors. "Greetings...to the Arabs in the forefront of whom come the heroic people of Palestine, and to every honourable warrior of the faithful who met his God with a pure heart," he said.

In a show of force, thousands of Iraqi volunteers, clad in military fatigues and brandishing assault rifles, paraded in the streets of Baghdad before the speech, vowing to defend Iraq and Mr. Hussein to the death.

The U.S. President, George W Bush, has said repeatedly Mr. Hussein was a threat to peace and stability, and he wanted a "regime change" in Iraq, clearly advocating the overthrow of the Iraqi leader. Mr. Hussein, dressed in civilian clothes, was defiant but stuck to well-known Iraqi positions. "There is no other choice for those who use threat and aggression but to be repelled even if they were to bring harm to their targets," he said in a 22-minute taped televised speech to the nation. "I say it in such clear terms so that no weakling should imagine that when we ignore responding to ill talk, then this means that we are frightened by the impudent threats...and so that no greedy tyrant should be misled into an action the consequences of which are beyond their calculations," he said. — Reuters

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