Date:10/10/2002 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2002/10/10/stories/2002101002071400.htm

International

Iraq will not bend, declares Saddam

By Atul Aneja

MANAMA (BAHRAIN) OCT. 9. The U.S. President, George W. Bush, was threatening Iraq with a war because Baghdad had refused to yield to Washington's pressure, Iraq's President, Saddam Hussein, has said.

Reacting to the recent televised address by Mr. Bush on Iraq, Mr. Hussein said that U.S. threats were a result of its inability to force Iraqis to beg for forgiveness. ``Bush was unable to twist your arm and make you beg saying, `We beg your pardon, Sir, we will not repeat what we have done,''' the Iraqi News Agency quoted Mr. Hussein as telling the people. ``The reason for their (Americans') anger is clear. That is because of your desire for development and your unbending will in the face of evil, pressure and aggression,'' he added.

Supplementing Mr. Hussein's assertions, Iraq's Information Minister, Mohammad Saeed As-Sahaf, has said that the Bush administration was using Iraq to divert attention from "aggravating" domestic problems. Mr. Bush, he added was "blackmailing" the U.N. Security Council to pass an "oppressive resolution." Such a step, he felt, would only prolong the sufferings of the Iraqi people. Meanwhile, two senior members of the Iraqi Parliament have pointed to Mr. Bush's reference to the possible Iraqi use of mass destruction weapons against the United States and said that Mr. Bush's speech was "full of lies." "(The) Bush speech is full of lies and full of unreasonable argument,'' Abdul Aziz Kailani, a member of the Iraqi Parliament said. "Bush is just like a beast which wants to eat small countries and while he should help them he wants to destroy them,'' he added.

Another Parliamentarian denied that Baghdad possessed any weapons of mass destruction. Washington was charging that Iraq possessed non-conventional weapons in order to find an excuse to attack it. "We have no weapons of mass destruction and the whole world knows that but Bush wants to impose his hegemony on the world and subject Iraq to his rule," Abdul Aziz Shwaish, said. He also dismissed Iraq's links to terrorist groups and rejected Mr. Bush's assertion that Iraq had maintained high-level contacts for more than a decade with Osama bin Laden's Al-Qaeda network.

AFP reports:

Iraq's Deputy Prime Minister, Tariq Aziz, has accused the U.S. of planning to ``annihilate Iraq'' and then divide up the Arab world as he rallied Syrian support for Baghdad's isolated regime. The U.S. ``wants to annihilate Iraq and then divide up the Middle East. We are all threatened" Mr. Aziz said in Damascus on Wednesdy.