The eldest son of Saddam Hussein rejected on Tuesday the U.S. ultimatum for the Iraqi leader and his sons to go into exile or face war, and said any U.S. forces that invaded Iraq faced a "bloody battle."
"The proposal...comes from a person who is not completely capable or fit...the proposal should be that Bush leaves office in America, he and his family," Saddam's son Uday said in remarks issued by his office.
"The wives and mothers of those Americans who will fight us will cry blood, not tears," he said. "They should not imagine that they will have a safe spot inside the land of Iraq or outside it."
Earlier, Iraq said President Bush should resign allowing the US people to live peacefully in the world.
Iraqi Foreign Minister Naji Sabri in a press conference criticizing the United Nations expressed regrets over repatriation of the arms inspectors from Iraq.
President Bush has isolated the USA, the Americans are being identified in the world as aggressors' due to the policies of President Bush, the Iraqi minister said.
President Bush's failure to get support of the world for the war against Iraq has made the United States' position ridiculous in the world, he observed.
"The only option (to avoid war) is the departure of the number one warmonger in the world, US President George W. Bush," Sabri told reporters.
Sabri hit out at "the failing President Bush who made his country a joke in the world and isolated his administration."
Iraq's ambassador to the United Nations Mohammed Aldouri said Baghdad's main priority following the withdrawal of UN weapons inspectors "is to prepare for war." "Our duty now is to prepare ourselves to defend our country," Aldouri said after UN Secretary General Kofi Annan announced that he had ordered UN staff to leave Iraq.
The Arab League also rejected the US ultimatum to Iraq, accusing Washington of "acting outside international legality." The Arab League cannot accept such a final warning, Hisham Yussef, the spokesman of the Arab League told reporters.
UN Security Council Resolution 1441 does not contain a time limit and the world has acknowledged that Iraq was cooperating with UN weapons inspectors to implement this resolution, he added.
"We regret the US decision to act outside the UN Security Council and outside international legality. It seems that the United States is intent on ending diplomatic action despite the desire of the entire world which considers that there is a real opportunity for peaceful settlement," he added.
The spokesman also "voiced regrets for UN Secretary General Kofi Annan's decision to pull out the inspectors" who had been checking for Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction. (Albawaba.com)
© 2003 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
