Saddam braces for 'final battle' as US deadline nears
( 2003-03-19 14:57 ) (7 )

A defiant Saddam Hussein readied Iraq on Wednesday for its "last battle" against the United States, which warned it would invade even if the Iraqi leader met an imminent deadline to go into exile.

With nearly 300,000 US and British troops poised to strike Iraq, US President George W. Bush huddled with close aides at the White House on Tuesday and placed a call to British Prime Minister Tony Blair, his top ally in the crisis.

Bush issued a 48-hour ultimatum at 0100 GMT Tuesday for Saddam to go into exile or face war, after the collapse of efforts at the UN Security Council to rid Baghdad of its alleged arsenal of weapons of mass destruction without war.

Saddam rejected Bush's deadline as "despicable."

"This battle will be Iraq's last battle against the tyrannous villains and the last battle of aggression undertaken by America against the Arabs," Saddam declared Tuesday.

Iraq's ambassador to the United Nations, Mohammad Aldouri, however, told reporters his country wanted to avoid war at "all price." He did not elaborate.

The White House insisted US-led troops would enter Iraq to hunt for the weapons even if Saddam went into exile with his two sons Uday and Qusay after almost three decades of iron-fisted rule.

If Saddam were to leave, American forces, coalition forces, would still enter Iraq," said spokesman Ari Fleischer.

Thousands of US marines set off in tanks, armoured vehicles and trucks across the Kuwaiti desert to take up battle positions, as messages were broadcast to Iraq from US ships and aircraft telling Iraqi troops how to surrender.

Lieutenant General William Wallace, commander of the army's Fifth Corps in Kuwait, predicted the US-led forces would roll over the Iraqis in "days, maybe weeks."

In Washington, lawmakers said Bush was expected to ask Congress for about 100 billion dollars to pay for the upcoming invasion of Iraq.

Governments opposed to the military action were still locked in last-ditch attempts to avert war, complaining that Bush had not exhausted all avenues to resolve the crisis peacefully.

But Belgium backed down from a threat to refuse transit to US forces if war went ahead against Iraq without UN backing, and France, which has led opposition to the war, indicated it would change its view if Saddam used chemical or biological weapons against US forces.

At the United Nations, sources said the Security Council had failed to agree on a draft document outlining future tasks for UN weapons inspectors in Iraq. The report must be presented at a meeting of the council's foreign ministers scheduled for 1530 GMT Wednesday.

In London, Blair won the backing from parliament for war, but suffered a blow to his authority from MPs of his Labour party who staged a huge rebellion against his hardline stance.

The House of Commons voted 412-149 for a motion that Britain should use "all means necessary" to ensure the disarmament of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.

But minutes earlier, 217 British parliamentarians out of a total of 659 supported an amendment which stated that the case for war with Iraq had "not yet been established".

Over 130 MPs from the ruling Labour party were believed to be among the parliamentarians who voted for the amendment.

Australian Prime Minister John Howard was also besieged by protests in parliament on Wednesday after he committed Australian troops to the war.

When the premier turned his back in parliament on main opposition leader Simon Crean and laughed at him, Crean shouted across the chamber: "You cannot do it, prime minister ... you have turned your back on the Australian people."

In Iraq's northern neighbour Turkey, Justice Minister Cemil Cicek said the government would ask parliament to approve overflight rights for US aircraft participating in a war - although not the deployment of 62,000 US troops on its soil, which was already rejected.

Kurdish factions, which have exercised de facto control over northern Iraq since the aftermath of the 1991 Gulf war, fear that during a US-led war Turkey will send troops across the border to prevent the establishment of an independent Kurdish state.

Despite the bitter UN fight over Iraq, US Secretary of State Colin Powell said Washington boasted the support of 45 nations - although 15 of them did not want to be named.

In Denmark, a parliament committee gave the go-ahead Tuesday for a Danish submarine and naval corvette to be deployed as part of operations against Iraq. And South Korea said it may send non-combat troops to support the impending war.

In Baghdad, thousands of Iraqis, some of them children, waved assault rifles in the air, vowing a "holy struggle" to defend Saddam.

"Any aggression against Iraq will make them (the Americans) regret their tragic fate and the wives and mothers of the Americans who fight us will cry tears of blood," Saddam's elder son Uday warned. "They should not think themselves safe anywhere in Iraq or abroad."

Americans and Britons were told to brace for possible terrorist attacks by al-Qaeda or Iraqi agents, governments across Europe stepped up security and several airlines cut Middle East routes, while anti-war protests flared in a number of European cities and towns.

Three men were arrested near Gatwick airport south of London and two home-made bombs were found in a flat in the nearby town of Crawley, British police said.

In a last-gasp move to avoid conflict, Chinese President Hu Jintao spoke by phone with Bush as well as with French President Jacques Chirac and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

"The door to peace cannot be closed," he said.

The Vatican scolded Bush for assuming a "grave responsibility before God" in deciding that diplomacy had been exhausted, and the top UN refugee official Ruud Lubbers warned of the humanitarian consequences of war.

UN officials are working on contingency plans to cope with a possible flight of 600,000 Iraq refugees.

"Let us not forget for a moment the suffering that comes with war - the fear, the destruction, the loss of innocent lives, the desperation of refugees fleeing their homes," said Lubbers.