Quiet hits Baghdad streets as war looms

The Baghdad streets were eerily quiet today as the US deadline approached for Saddam Hussein to leave Iraq or face a massive military onslaught.

Iraqi MPs remained defiant however, meeting in an extraordinary session to declare they were ready to give up their lives for their president.

Asked whether Saddam would decide to flee at the last minute and save his people from war, parliamentary speaker Saadoon Hammadi said: “He will be in front of everyone. He will fight and guide our country to victory.”

US President George Bush gave the Iraq dictator and his sons until midnight tonight to leave the country or face attack. About 300,000 US and British troops are poised to strike.

Bush’s spokesman yesterday said the White House would not rule out a US attack before the deadline expired. “Saddam Hussein has to figure out what this means,” Ari Fleischer said.

Saddam has indicated that he has no plans to go anywhere, appearing on television in military uniform for the first time since the 1991 Gulf War.

He also chaired a joint meeting of the Revolutionary Command Council and his Baath party yesterday at which he condemned Bush and his ultimatum.

Some shops in the Iraqi capital were shuttered today and there were few cars on the streets.

Yesterday, residents had mobbed bakeries and petrol stations in a desperate rush for supplies.

“Death will come to you no matter where you are,” said Lamia’a Kazem Mohammed, a 55-year-old housewife in a black chador as she headed home with two small shopping bags.

“I am not going anywhere when the bombs fall. I am staying put at my house.”

At the Al-Saydia food market which remained open, shoppers showed a preference for onions and potatoes.

“They can keep for a long time, so people are buying them in big quantities,” said vegetables seller Mohammed Adnan, adding that the demand had caused prices to rise.

Shelves in many shops in the centre of Baghdad were nearly empty after store owners moved their merchandise to warehouses, fearing bombing or looting.

The dinar, Iraq’s currency, also lost ground against the US dollar, slumping to about 2,900 to the dollar, compared to 2,800 yesterday and 2,600 a week ago.

Thousands of demonstrators swept into the streets of the Iraqi capital yesterday to show their support for Saddam.

Waving pictures of the Iraqi leader they promised to give him their “blood and souls”. They carried banners saying: “Saddam is Iraq and Iraq is Saddam.”

Smaller demonstrations took place elsewhere in Baghdad, but there were no immediate reports of demonstrations elsewhere in Iraq.

Saddam, Iraq’s president of 23 years, chaired a military meeting yesterday attended by his son Qusai, who heads the elite Republican Guard, and other senior commanders.

They reviewed war plans and military readiness, Iraq’s Al-Shabab television said.

And the diplomatic exodus continued, with ambassadors from Greece and France driving out to Jordan.

Diplomats from China, Germany and the Czech Republic left earlier in the week.

Many of the hundreds of foreign journalists who have been covering Iraq’s stand-off with the US also departed, with only several dozen now left in the Iraqi capital.

The UN weapons inspectors flew out of Iraq yesterday, ordered out by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan after Washington indicated that war was near.

UN officials said about 150 inspectors, support staff, humanitarian workers and UN observers were evacuated from Iraq.

Foreign Minister Naji Sabri criticised Annan for withdrawing the inspectors, saying the UN had abandoned its duties.

He also criticised the decision to pull out UN monitors from the Iraq-Kuwait border, calling it a violation of UN resolutions that cleared “the path for aggression”.

“This is a clear violation of the Charter of the United Nations,” he said. “This is abandoning by the UN of its duties. It is a shameful measure.”