Two Iraqi civilians were killed and 13 others wounded in the latest US-British air raids on southern Iraq, an Iraqi Air Defense Command spokesman said on Tuesday.
At 8:35 p.m. local time (1735 GMT) Monday, US and British warplanes bombed civilian and service facilities in the southern province of Misan, killing two Iraqis and wounding 13 others, the spokesman told the official Iraqi News Agency (INA).
Meanwhile, Iraqi President Saddam Hussein has said the country's armed forces are stronger than in the 1991 Gulf War and Iraq is not Afghanistan, INA added.
"In 1991, we lacked the experience in this kind of fighting...but now our armed forces are stronger and our soldiers understand better their duties and role," Saddam told the commanders of the elite Republican Guards, headed by his youngest son Qusay, on Monday, the Iraqi Army Day.
"No army in the world has gained the experience in fighting an advanced army like the experience that we have gained from the circumstances that we went through in 1991 and what followed," Saddam was quoted as saying.
"It seems that what the enemy called the overthrow of the Taliban regime is enticing it to make an aggression against Iraq," Saddam told his officers. "Iraq is different from Afghanistan," Saddam said, adding that Iraq is a "rich, well-organized and stable country" that "produces oil and does not need to import it."
"The Americans love to exaggerate and bully. They bring some soldiers to the desert and then take them away by planes to other places while the media show their images and movements...." Saddam said.
"They are hiding many goals...One of the goals is to open the chance for the (UN) inspectors to work beyond the announced goals of the (UN) Security Council," he said.
"Although all the goals of UN Security Council are against Iraq, unjust and illegal, including Resolution 1441, yet spying on Iraq is not among the goals of these bad resolutions," Saddam said.
"They are doing cheap intelligence work without paying direct and daily cost as they would have if they sent spies to do their work," the Iraqi president said. (Albawaba.com)
© 2003 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
