IRAQ: Iraq has reacted to threats of US military action against it with a mixture of tough-talking defiance, bilious rhetoric and assertions that it was not in breach of its obligations to the United Nations.
The Iraqi president, Mr Saddam Hussein, said his regime had fulfilled all its commitments to UN Security Council resolutions imposed for invading Kuwait in 1990, the official INA news agency reported.
"Iraq has fulfilled all the commitments imposed on it by the UN Security Council but [the council] has not fulfilled the commitments contained in its own resolutions, notably the respect of Iraq's independence and sovereignty and the lifting of the unjust embargo," President Saddam said.
He added that US threats to strike Iraq, which Washington accuses of developing weapons of mass destruction and harbouring terrorists, "are not aimed only at Iraq but the entire Arab world."
Any settlement of the problem between Iraq and the United Nations "must rely on international law and the UN charter," President Saddam said during talks in Baghdad with Qatari Foreign Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jaber al-Thani.
Iraq's vice-president, Taha Yassin Ramadan, in the Syrian capital for talks aimed at building Arab support against any US action, attacked his US counterpart Mr Dick Cheney's call to topple President Saddam Hussein.
"It is a logic that expresses the height of all animosity and hate against the Arab and Islamic nation," Mr Ibrahim told reporters after meeting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
Before leaving Baghdad, he reiterated Baghdad's contention that UN arms inspection chief Mr Hans Blix, a Swede, was a "new spy" and accused him of pursuing an anti-Iraq American policy.
"The problem is not whether we allow the inspectors to come back or not, rather that the American Administration wants to attack because it is against the Iraqi government," Mr Ramadan was quoted as saying.
"So what is the purpose of allowing them to come back?" he demanded.
The weapons experts, who went into Iraq after the 1991 Gulf War, inspected and destroyed weapons before leaving in December 1998 on the eve of a US-British bombing campaign launched over Iraq's alleged failure to cooperate with the weapons inspectors.
On Saturday, Mr Blix was quoted as saying Iraq could avoid a military confrontation by letting in the UN inspectors, but said he believed such efforts were doomed if Iraq believed war was unavoidable.
Upon his arrival in Damascus, Mr Ramadan said: "My visit to Syria and then on to Lebanon aims to co-ordinate and define a joint position in the face of these challenges".
"We could not care less about the threats that are out there. Iraq has a long history with these threats and such despotism ... We are currently reassured because our people are united and international public opinion rejects the American hegemony and oppression," Mr Ramadan added.
Mr Ramadan's visit to Syria comes a day after President Assad made a lightning visit to Saudi Arabia for talks with its de facto ruler, Crown Prince Abdullah, in which they reiterated their opposition to any US military strike on Baghdad, accused by Washington of developing weapons of mass destruction. - (AFP)