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.