IRAQ: One of President Saddam Hussein's right-hand men yesterday vowed to fight with his leader to defend Iraq, warning US and British troops that they would suffer all the horrors of the Battle of Stalingrad if they attacked. From Dan McLaughlin, in Moscow.
"We have a powerful army. We are ready to repulse the aggression," Iraq's Deputy Prime Minister, Mr Tariq Aziz, told Izvestia newspaper.
"The Americans should realise that in Iraq death will be waiting for them around every corner.
"Stalingrad is a shining example of heroic defence. We know well the history of World War Two - Iraq will become a second Stalingrad for the American and British invaders," he said.
Russia last Sunday commemorated the end of the Battle of Stalingrad, 60 years after the Red Army defeated the Nazis in a 200-day struggle that turned the tide of the war against Hitler's Third Reich.
More than a million Soviet troops and civilians were killed by saturation bombing and the Nazi machine gunners, who mowed down wave after wave of soldiers sent from their trenches to certain death. More than half a million German troops also died, as much from cold and hunger as from fighting that raged over every street in the city that was renamed Volgagrad in 1961. Excavations there still regularly unearth the bones of the fallen.
Mr Aziz also lambasted the United States Secretary of State Mr Colin Powell's intelligence report to the United Nations this week, which Washington said proved Iraq was hiding weapons of mass destruction and links with the al-Qaeda terror network.
"The Iraqi leadership will send an official letter within the next few days to the UN Secretary General with the denial of the US accusations," Mr Aziz said.
"The satellite photographs \ offered for the judgment of the international community do not prove anything. I want to remind you that Powell had already shown similar pictures to the Security Council earlier. Furthermore, this 'compromising material' has long been at the disposal of the UN inspectors. The recordings of telephone conversations between Iraqi military officials are also fabricated," Mr Aziz said in the front-page interview.
He said Iraq's "powerful army" was ready to counter any attacks by "the United States and its few allies". Washington said this week that 110,000 of its troops were already stationed in the Gulf, with full support from attack aircraft and warships.
Mr Aziz said Iraq did not have the capability to repeat missile attacks on Israel during the Gulf War and had no intention of invading neighbouring Kuwait, which was the catalyst for the 1991 conflict that ended in Baghdad's defeat, the imposition of UN sanctions and a demand that the country's chemical and biological weapons be destroyed. US troops stationed in Kuwait could be a target though, Mr Aziz said.
He called on the Kremlin to maintain its support for a peaceful resolution to the crisis, but rebuffed suggestions that Saddam Hussein might go into exile to avert war.
"Saddam Hussein was born in Iraq and will stay in Iraq," he said. "Iraq is my homeland too. We will fight to the very last bullet."