A defiant Iraq braced on Wednesday for war within hours after flatly rejecting a US ultimatum for President Saddam Hussein to flee and thousands of US and British troops drew up battle lines in the desert.
The United States threatened to invade even if Saddam and his two sons fled into exile by the 0100 GMT Thursday deadline set by President George Bush, warning that his rejection of the ultimatum was his ”final mistake”.
Meeting in emergency session, Iraq’s parliament unanimously rejected the ultimatum as panicked residents of Baghdad were fleeing or stocking up on basic supplies to bunker down for what would be their third war since 1980.
”History will recall how the people of Iraq, under the glorious leadership of Saddam Hussein, inflicted a lesson on the worthless,” parliament said in a statement approved by every MP present.
Speaker Saadun Hammadi insisted Saddam, who has ruled with an iron fist since 1979, would never leave. The United States and key ally Britain have 280 000 troops in
the Gulf awaiting orders and Washington says it is backed by a 45-nation ”coalition of the willing” although 15 of them refuse to be named.
But plans for attack may be complicated by a severe sandstorm sweeping the region, with thick dust reducing visibility to 500 metres and less in the Kuwaiti desert where most troops are stationed.
The impending military showdown has caused deep fractures in the international community, with nations such as Russia, China and France calling for more diplomacy to rid Iraq of alleged arsenal of biological and chemical weapons.
Saddam, whose regime has been under crippling UN sanctions since it invaded Kuwait in August 1990, says Iraq no longer has any weapons of mass destruction.
”This battle will be Iraq’s last battle against the tyrannous villains and the last battle of aggression undertaken by America against the Arabs,” he declared Tuesday.
The White House said US-led troops would enter Iraq to hunt for weapons even if Saddam went into exile with sons Uday and Qussay.
”Iraq has made a series of mistakes, including arming themselves with weapons of mass destruction, that have brought this crisis upon itself,” said spokesman Ari Fleischer.
”This is the latest mistake Iraq can make. It would be Saddam Hussein’s final mistake,” he said.
Lawmakers said Bush was expected to ask Congress for $100- billion to pay for the invasion, which comes 12 years after Bush’s father and former president sent in a US-led coalition to oust Iraqi troops from Kuwait.
Bush met with top national security aides Tuesday to study war plans and called British Prime Minister Tony Blair, his closest ally who survived a damaging party rebellion to succeed in winning parliamentary backing for war.
Americans have been warned to brace for possible terrorist
strikes by al-Qaeda or Iraqi agents that could dwarf the September 11, 2001 attacks and governments across Europe and Asia have also stepped up security.
Saddam’s elder son Uday warned Tuesday that if Iraq was attacked ”the wives and mothers of the Americans who fight us will cry tears of blood.
”They should not think themselves safe anywhere in Iraq or abroad.”
In the northern Kuwaiti desert, thousands of US Marines were taking up battle positions and messages were broadcast from US ships and aircraft telling Iraqi troops how to surrender.
Lieutenant General William Wallace, commander of the army’s Fifth Corps, predicted the US-led forces would roll over the Iraqis in ”days, maybe weeks”.
The impending war is creating fears of a humanitarian disaster and UN officials are working on contingency plans to cope with a possible flight of 600 000 Iraq refugees.
UN inspectors pulled of Iraq on Tuesday, along with diplomats and foreign nationals who have been told to leave the Iraq and neighbouring countries including Kuwait, Israel, Syria and Jordan.
In a ghostlike Baghdad, residents were scrambling to gather stocks of food, medicines and fuel. But most shops had shut their doors and prices for basic supplies had doubled or tripled while the value of the dinar tumbled.
”We are not wondering whether there would be war anymore,” said one taxi driver. ”We are just anxious about the exact time the bombs will start raining on Baghdad, our great Arab ancient city before the eyes of a heedless world.”
On the diplomatic front, the UN Security Council is to meet at 1530 GMT to discuss the crisis and hear from top UN weapons inspector Hans Blix, who is to formally present a programme setting Iraq 12 key disarmament tasks.
But US Secretary of State Colin Powell and British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw are snubbing the meeting, after deciding to bypass the United Nations and go to war without its authorisation.
War looked inevitable despite last-ditch attempts to find a peaceful solution by Chinese President Hu Jintao, who said: ”The door to peace cannot be closed.”
The Vatican scolded Bush for assuming a ”grave responsibility before God” in deciding that diplomacy had been exhausted.
In Iraq’s northern neighbour Turkey, parliament is expected Thursday to approve overflight rights for US aircraft ‒- although not the deployment of 62 000 US troops on its soil.
Kurdish factions, which have exercised de facto control over northern Iraq since the 1991 Gulf War, fear that during a US-led war Turkey will send troops across the border to prevent the establishment of an independent Kurdish state.
But a fresh diplomatic spat between France and Britain flared after Paris said it was ”shocked” by statements made by British government ministers during the marathon parliamentary debate on Tuesday over Iraq.
Blair, defending his decision to lead Britain into war despite the protest resignation of three ministers, said he was ”sad” to have seen French President Jacques Chirac so determined to veto a fresh UN resolution.
Australian Prime Minister John Howard was also besieged by protests in parliament after he committed 2 000 Australian troops to the war. – Sapa-AFP