Saddam considers mobilising Iraqis to face US

Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and his senior aides discussed a general mobilisation of the country to face the prospect of a US strike, the official Iraqi News Agency reported.

US President George W. Bush recently warned Saddam there would be consequence if Iraq did not resume co-operation with UN arms inspectors, who have been barred from Iraq since 1998.

On Sunday, Saddam chaired a meeting of the two most powerful bodies in his regime - the Revolutionary Command Council and the Regional Command of the ruling Baath party - to discuss ways to improve a mobilisation of Iraqis, INA said.

The meeting discussed means to ‘‘confront the malicious, hostile plans that the rulers of America are brandishing against our people, and how to thwart them,’’ the agency added.

Saddam has previously said Iraq will not be caught off guard by a US strike.

UN arms inspectors are charged with verifying that Iraq has eliminated its weapons of mass destruction and the means to produce them one of the conditions for the lifting of sanctions imposed since Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990.