Defiant Saddam declares Iraq ready for war

A DEFIANT Iraqi President Saddam Hussein yesterday declared his country ready for war and issued his first public criticism of UN weapons inspectors, accusing them of engaging in “pure intelligence work”.

In a 25-minute televised message on Army Day, Saddam dismissed US threats to disarm Iraq by force as “clamour, commotion and hysteria” aimed at diverting attention from US domestic and foreign policy failures, and the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories.

“As we monitor the hiss of snakes and bark of dogs accompanied by continued aggression in the north and south of the country, we act with the confidence of the assured whose actions are not hurried or confused,” he said. “Here, we have prepared for everything.”

However, Britain, Washington’s staunchest ally on Iraq, said war with Baghdad was far from a foregone conclusion and less likely than many commentators implied.

“There has been so much talk in the newspapers about war, suggestions that the chance of war are 100%, that it’s important to try and correct that impression,” British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said.

“What is important for people to understand is that war is not inevitable.”

As tens of thousands of troops mass in the Gulf, UN inspectors once again fanned out yesterday in search of banned weapons. Iraq has co-operated but some officials have rebuked inspectors for aggressive and intrusive methods.

During an address commemorating the founding of the Iraqi army in 1921, Saddam issued his first public criticism of the UN teams.

He said rather than searching for weapons of mass destruction, the inspectors were instead compiling lists of Iraqi scientists and gathering information about army camps and “legitimate military production ... These things, or most of them, are pure intelligence work.”

Chief UN weapons inspector Hans Blix and International Atomic Energy Agency Director-General Mohamed El-Baradei are scheduled to present an interim report on inspections to the Security Council on Thursday, with a second more comprehensive report due on January 27.