U.S.-led forces are colonialists aiming to partition Iraq: FM

U.S.-led forces are colonialists aiming to partition Iraq: FM

Agencies, Baghdad

The U.S.-led forces waging war on Iraq are colonialists aiming to "partition" the country, Iraqi Foreign Minister Naji Sabri charged at a press conference here on Monday.

"The colonial forces are seeking to achieve their dreams that are to partition Iraq so that there is no longer a unified Iraq," Sabri said.

"But they have fallen in the trap of their dreams, built on wrong analyses, and are facing a united people, with authorities and people fighting side by side," he added.

Sabri called on coalition forces to withdraw from the country immediately, and reiterated that thousands of foreign volunteers were ready to take part in suicide attacks against coalition forces.

"Withdraw now rather than tomorrow," Sabri said, as coalition warplanes resumed their bombardment of the capital. "That will cause you fewer losses."

"More than 5,000 foreign Arab volunteers are in Iraq to defend the honor of the Arabs and Muslims," he said, reiterating statements from Iraqi officials that they came from "all Arab countries, without exception."

"Three days ago, they numbered 4,000 but today we have more than 5,000," he added.

Earlier, Iraqi Gen. Hazem al-Rawi said there were more than 4,000 volunteers who were ready to follow in the footsteps of an Iraqi who killed four U.S. soldiers in a suicide attack in southern Iraq on Saturday.

Sabri also said any coalition forces that surrendered would be treated in line with international conventions.

"He who gives himself up will be treated by Iraqi authorities according to the Geneva convention" on the treatment of war prisoners, he said.

The foreign minister added that coalition troops were "falling on all fronts and retreating in the face of destructive bombings by Iraqi civilian and military fighters."

"Coalition forces are drowning more and more each day ... and suffer more and more losses," he said.

Turning to the Arab states, Sabri, without naming any country, accused them of "turning or attempting to turn their back on Iraq."

"They will pay dearly for this from their people," warned Sabri, who hailed the "position of the Arab people toward Iraq," and called on Arab regimes to listen to public opinion.

Meanwhile, Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tareq Aziz said in an interview on Sunday that the war against U.S. and British invasion forces was going well, and he described Iraq's decision to use suicide bombings as heroic.

"When you fight an invader by whatever means available to you, you are not a terrorist; you are a hero," he told the ABC television network a day after an Iraqi officer killed four U.S. soldiers in a suicide bombing at a checkpoint near Najaf.

Aziz said Iraq has been bringing in would-be suicide bombers from other parts of the Muslim world for further attacks on the U.S.-led invasion force.

"From outside or from inside (Iraq), these people are heroes. They are freedom fighters against invaders, against colonialists, against imperialists," he said.

In a version of the ABC interview screened by the BBC in London, Aziz also said Iraqi leaders were not surprised by the strength of resistance against U.S. and British troops.

"The war is going very well as far as we see it, and as far as realities are," he said in remarks aired on the 11th day of the conflict.

"They are surprised that the Iraqi people are resisting them courageously with a great determination to deter them. We are not surprised, we expected that, we said that," he said.

Aziz said he had spoken to a number of American journalists including one who suggested the Iraqi people would receive U.S. troops with music and flowers.

"I told them that the Iraqi people are going to fight back ... The Iraqis are going to receive the Americans with bullets," he said.

Iraqi forces were prepared to fight on in hopes of drawing out the war and exhausting America's will to fight, he told ABC. "We can end this war when the invaders withdraw totally, unconditionally from the Iraqi territory," Aziz said.

U.S. aircraft applied relentless pressure on Iraqi positions in and around Baghdad on Sunday as U.S. military leaders fended off growing criticism of their war plans and insisted the campaign was still on course.