Iraqi President Saddam Hussein has told a British member of parliament that he will implement United Nations resolutions and allow arms inspectors into his country, a Sunday newspaper reported.
Saddam said he ”accepted and would implement” all UN security council resolutions on Iraq, including giving ”unfettered access” to sites which were denied to inspections teams which left the country four years ago, The Mail on Sunday said.
He also warned during an interview, given deep in an underground bunker, that his people would not surrender in the event of an anticipated US-led attack on his country.
Saddam was interviewed by George Galloway, a left-wing member of parliament for Britain’s ruling Labour Party and a long-time supporter of Iraq, who was received in Baghdad on Thursday.
During his visit, Galloway, a columnist for the Scottish edition of the Mail on Sunday, also briefed Saddam of activities undertaken by a number of leading political and trade union figures in Britain to mobilise public opinion against London’s participation in any military campaign.
Deliberately echoing the words of Britain’s wartime leader Winston Churchill, Saddam told Galloway: ”If they come, we are ready. We will fight them on the streets, from the rooftops, from house to house. We will never surrender.”
As Britain battled against Germany during World War II, Churchill famously said: ”We shall fight on the beaches. We shall fight on the landing grounds. We shall fight in the fields, and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills. We shall never surrender.”
Saddam said: ”Churchill and the British meant what they promised their would-be invaders. So do we.”
His interview was seen in London as an attempt to drive a wedge between Britain and America.
”Without us it will be that much harder for America to invade,” The Mail on Sunday quoted a senior British foreign policy adviser as saying.
Saddam also told the weekly paper: ”If Britain were to find a more independent policy — one which took more account of its own interests and less to the interests of others — your country could begin to recover its once-significant status in the Arab world.”
He added: ”We don’t know why you turned against us more than any other European country … Iraq has never harmed Britain nor its interests. In fact, we were a very profitable part of Britain’s interests in the Arab world.”
US President George Bush is expected to call on London’s help in any military campaign to topple Saddam and halt Iraq’s alleged development of weapons of mass destruction. – Sapa-AP