The Iraqi President, Saddam Hussein said in an interview published Tuesday that the United States is threatening the entire Arab world, not just Iraq.
"The latest is a Zionist-American (aggression) against the Arab world represented by Palestine and Iraq," the Iraqi leader said in the interview, published in several Arabic newspapers in the arab Gulf region.
The interview, the first with Saddam to appear in years, was conducted by Mohammed al-Misfir, a political science professor at the University of Qatar and former editor-in-chief of Qatar's daily Al-Rayah. Al-Misfir met Saddam in the Iraqi capital of Baghdad earlier this month.
Al-Misfir told The Associated Press on Tuesday that despite the threat of U.S. strikes, Saddam appeared confident Iraqis could confront any such event.
"America loves war and it has declared its stance toward Iraq and other nations, but we will confront this aggression with all available force," al-Misfir quoted Saddam as saying.
"All the Arab nation is targeted. The battle is not about Iraq but about the nation as a whole," Saddam said in the interview, adding that Arabs were weakened because they did not act as one.
Saddam also praised suicide attacks against Israel saying they will be "recorded in our history with shining letters."
"Whenever a (suicide) attack occurs against the enemy, I feel as if I carried it out myself and every Arab should look at these acts this way," Saddam said. (Albawaba.com)
© 2002 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
