http://www.boston.com/dailynews/006/world/Saddam_vows_Iraq_will_defeat_a:.shtml

Saddam vows Iraq will defeat any foreign attack in Army Day speech

By Associated Press, 1/6/2002 16:38

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) President Saddam Hussein on Sunday vowed that Iraq's army would defeat any foreign attack and shrugged off reports that the United States might extend its campaign against terrorism to Iraq.

Addressing the nation on the occasion of Army Day, Saddam also praised Iraq's military and the Palestinian uprising against Israel.

''As your debased enemies failed in the past, so will any aggressor fail, if he lets himself be seduced into committing an act of evil,'' Saddam said in a 20-minute speech on national television.

Separately on Sunday, the newspaper of the ruling Baath party, al-Thawra, described U.S. Sen. Joseph Lieberman as ''insolent'' for his comments last week during a visit to Turkey.

Lieberman said: ''The war against terrorism will not end until Saddam Hussein is removed from power in Baghdad.''

''Lieberman is leading a hostile campaign against some Arab countries, and he is provoking others against Iraq, in particular,'' Al-Thawra said in an editorial.

President Bush has warned Saddam that his government must allow the return of U.N. arms inspectors, who have been barred from Iraq since late 1998.

The inspectors are charged with verifying whether Iraq has eliminated its weapons of mass destruction a condition for the lifting of U.N. sanctions imposed since the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990.

Iraq says it has eliminated such weapons.

-- Anonymous, January 07, 2002