Saddam Hussein told the nation Wednesday that foreign schemes to overthrow him would fail, and Iraq's neighbors restated fears that any US attack would destabilize the region.
In a televised speech marking Iraq's national day, Saddam said Iraqis are not afraid of the ``propaganda of foreign powers ... and Iraq will eventually emerge triumphant.'' He also exhorted Iraqis to fight for their country's independence and freedom.
``The wind will blow away foreign rattling as the noise of an evil tyrant,'' he said in an implicit reference to U.S. threats to remove him from power.
Changing the regime in Baghdad is a declared policy of President Bush, who accuses Iraq of sponsoring terrorism and producing and stockpiling weapons of mass destruction.
Though Iraq's Arab neighbors sided with the United States against Saddam in the 1991 Gulf War, they have since come to uneasy terms with his regime.
In a meeting Wednesday, Jordan's King Abdullah II and United Arab Emirates crown prince Sheik Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan reaffirmed their opposition to a military strike against Iraq.
They said an attack would be ``not only dangerous for Iraq, but also for the security and stability of the region,'' the official Emirates news agency WAM reported.
Jordan gets crude and fuel oil from Iraq and has said it would not allow the United States to use its bases in a campaign against Saddam. During a visit to Washington later this month, Abdullah was expected to urge Bush not to attack Iraq.
Turkey, a non-Arab neighbor of Iraq, reportedly told Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz it would agree to U.S. military action against Iraq only if a campaign does not lead to an independent Kurdish state in northern Iraq, where Kurdish autonomy is protected by U.S. and British warplanes.
Wolfowitz assured Turkish leaders Tuesday that Washington opposes a Kurdish state in northern Iraq.
Bush signed an order earlier this year directing the CIA to increase support to Iraqi opposition groups and allowing use of CIA and Special Forces teams against Saddam. If covert attempts fail, Bush is widely expected to try military action.
Iraq is under tough U.N. economic sanctions imposed after its 1990 invasion of Kuwait, which led to the Gulf War. The sanctions can be lifted only after U.N. inspectors verify it has no weapons of mass destruction, the capability to produce them or the long-range missiles to deliver them.
The inspectors left the country ahead of U.S. and British strikes in December 1998, and Baghdad has barred them from returning.
(China Daily July 18, 2002)
