A cocky Iraq yesterday issued the ultimate dare to the United States and its allies – saying it “has prepared everything” for war with its enemies.
“Our people’s morale is high . . . and we are quite certain we will be able to thwart the U.S. aggression,” defiant parliamentary speaker Saadoun Hammadi said.
“Our leadership has prepared everything, and our people are determined to resist all attempts against our country,” he boasted to reporters in Baghdad.
The U.S. has upped its threats in recent weeks to openly try to topple the Persian Gulf country’s oppressive regime, headed by madman dictator Saddam Hussein.
President Bush went so far as to publicly say the U.S. will now do everything it can to overthrow Saddam, blasting him as heading an “axis of evil” that feeds terrorist activities and is constantly trying to create weapons of mass destruction.
In response, Iraq’s irate government began readying its military for a possible strike.
“We shall defend our country in our territory,” Iraqi Foreign Minister Naji Sabri vowed over the weekend.
Still, one of Iraq’s key Middle East neighbors – and even a top U.S. lawmaker – all but dismissed the idea of “war” erupting anytime soon.
Jordan’s King Abdullah II yesterday called the prospect “somewhat ludicrous,” considering the more pressing tensions between Israel and the Palestinians in the region.
Abdullah also pooh-poohed the idea that his country would be used as a launching pad for any U.S. invasion of Iraq by allowing a buildup of American troops inside its borders. “That has not happened, and I don’t think will ever happen,” Abdullah said on CNN’s “Late Edition” of a possible buildup.
U.S. Sen. Joseph Biden (D-Del.), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, added that, “absent serious provocation by Iraq,” he did not foresee an invasion by the U.S. until at least November.
Both politicians’ comments came as Iraq reported that U.S. and British warplanes had again hit targets in its southern territory. There were no injuries, it said.
The warplanes have frequently bombed targets in defiance of Iraq’s self-defined airspace borders, particularly since Iraq stepped up its opposition to allowing U.N. weapons inspectors back into the country.
The U.N. has suggested that if Iraq would allow the inspections to restart, it would ease devastating sanctions placed against it in 1990 – after it invaded tiny, oil-rich neighbor Kuwait.
But Iraqi Foreign Minister Naji Sabri charged over the weekend that the U.S. wanted to have the inspections resumed “for the sole purpose of updating their military and intelligence information on Iraq to be used in any attack on the Iraqi population.”With Post Wire Services