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Iraq vows to 'bury' invaders
17/03/2003 08:35 - (SA)
Baghdad - Foreign Minister Naji Sabri vowed on Sunday that Iraq would "bury the aggressors" shortly after US President George W Bush gave the UN security council 24 hours to line up behind a resolution paving the way for war.
"We are ready to bury the aggressors in the deserts of Iraq and nobody who sets foot on the land of Iraq will come out safely," Sabri told reporters upon receiving Tunisian Foreign Minister Habib Ben Yahia at the airport.
Bush ended a summit earlier on Sunday with British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar in Portugal's Azores islands saying Monday was the deadline for the international community to find common ground on the standoff with Baghdad.
Asked whether Monday was the final opportunity for the deeply divided security council to vote on a resolution authorising the use of force against Iraq and whether the diplomatic window would close thereafter, Bush confirmed: "That's what I'm saying."
"What they said during the press conference amounts to arrogance vis-a-vis the international community and a threat against the United Nations," Sabri retorted.
"It is the behavior of crazy forces against the world, and this adds to their isolation," he said.
Sabri said "holding the summit on this remote and isolated island is proof of the isolation Bush and Blair have put themselves in as a result of their war plans.
"They cannot face their peoples and they cannot hold this summit in any other place in the world because the whole world is against them," he added.
But he said that while ready for war, Iraq would "carry on actively and fully cooperating with UN disarmament inspectors to enable them to accomplish their mission in keeping with UN security council resolutions."
Sabri said in an interview aired earlier that Iraq was preparing for war "as if it will break out in an hour" and that thousands of Iraqis had volunteered to be martyrs in battle against the United States.
"Iraq is preparing for war as if it will break out in an hour...Tens of thousands of Iraqi men and women have volunteered to be martyrdom-seekers against the US enemy, and we have trained and equipped them," he told the Dubai-based Al-Arabiya TV news channel.
"We are defending our country and we (are) on our land. We will cut off the head of anyone who (tries to) harm us, our people or our freedom," he said when asked if Iraq would hit targets outside its territory in the event of war.
"We have prepared ourselves for all kinds of warfare, including urban and desert warfare.
"The planes of the American enemy may be masters in the skies, but we are the masters on the ground and we will burn whoever comes to our land," Sabri said, adding that there were "seven million combatants in Iraq."
Iraq's chief diplomat dismissed a press report that President Saddam Hussein had put his half-brother Barzan al-Tikriti, an ex-envoy to the United Nations in Geneva, under house arrest after he refused to pledge support for Saddam's powerful son Qusay in the event he succeeds the Iraqi leader.
"This is part of the psychological war being waged against Iraq," he said.
- AFX
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