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'Victory is near', says Saddam
24/03/2003 10:42 - (SA)
Baghdad - Iraqi President Saddam Hussein said in a national address on state television on Monday that Iraqi forces had inflicted serious losses on US-led forces and praised commanders fighting specific battles with the invaders.
Wearing military uniform and reading his address from behind a podium, Saddam praised the Iraqi commander at Umm Qasr, where US-led tanks, ground-attack jets, artillery and infantry have failed to dislodge more than 120 Iraqi Republican Guards.
He also said "victory is very near" in Basra, southern Iraq, which US and British tank units were still trying to secure. He called on defenders of Baghdad and the northern city of Mosul to hold firm, saying "despicable enemies would be defeated".
"We are going to be victorious", he added, calling for resistance to coalition forces nearing the Iraqi capital.
"The enemy has come to occupy your land", Saddam said in translated remarks. "The enemies are in real trouble right now because they have invaded our land."
The television images gave no indication Hussein had been wounded, as has been rumoured since the war in Iraq began five days ago.
Addressing roughly a half-dozen of his military commanders by name, Saddam said "patience my friends...the enemy is going to launch more aggressions against you."
"Long live the Iraqis."
It was not clear whether the 20-minute speech was recorded or live, but the fact that Saddam mentioned successes in Umm Qasr suggested it had been made recently.
Reuters correspondents in Baghdad and elsewhere in the Middle East said they were confident that the man appearing on live television was Saddam. The Iraqi leader has a handful of lookalikes who sometimes stand in for him.
Speculation has abounded about Saddam's fate since the war started with air strikes on Baghdad intended to kill him. Some reports said he was dead, others that he was so badly wounded he had to receive a blood transfusion. - Reuters, Sapa-DPA
- News24
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