Saddam says attack against Iraq would target all Arab states

Associated Press WriterDUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) -- Saddam Hussein sought to rally the Arab world against U.S. plans to topple him, saying in a rare interview published Tuesday that any American action against Iraq would be an attack on all Arabs.

Saddam's comments came as the Pentagon's No. 2 official was in Turkey -- a neighbor of Iraq and a key U.S. ally -- trying to drum up support for military action against Iraq.

Turkish leaders, however, appeared reluctant. Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit told Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz that an attack on Iraq would throw Turkey's fragile economy into "chaos," the Anatolia news agency reported.

President Bush -- whose father launched the Gulf War against Saddam in 1991 -- says he aims to remove Saddam and accuses Iraq of sponsoring terrorism and producing and stockpiling weapons of mass destruction. Bush signed an order this year directing the CIA to increase support to Iraqi opposition groups and allowing possible use of CIA and Special Forces teams against Saddam. If covert attempts fail, some expect Bush to try military action.

Saddam appeared confident Iraq could defend itself, said Mohammed al-Misfir, a political science professor at the University of Qatar, who conducted the interview in Baghdad.

"America loves war and it has declared its stance toward Iraq and other nations, but we will confront this aggression with all available force," Saddam said, al-Misfir told The Associated Press on Tuesday.

"All the Arab nation is targeted. The battle is not about Iraq but about the nation as a whole," Saddam said in the interview, published in several Arab newspapers, including Qatar's Al-Sharq and the Emirates' Al-Khaleej.

Al-Misfir, former editor-in-chief of Qatar's daily Al-Rayah, would not say how the interview was arranged. Saddam rarely speaks to reporters but regularly delivers televised speeches or issues statements through his government.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair said that while no specific plans had been worked out, the threat of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction made some action against Saddam inevitable.

"There is a threat," Blair told members of Parliament in London. "The options are open, but we do have to deal with it. How we deal with it, however, is, as I say, an open question."

Russia, a longtime ally of Iraq, repeated its opposition to any attack. "We do not and cannot back any unilateral military actions against Iraq that are not sanctioned by the United Nations," Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov said Tuesday.

Turkey -- which already gives its bases for allied flights patrolling Iraq -- would be key to another assault on Saddam. Wolfowitz met Tuesday with Ecevit, as well as Turkey's defense minister and top generals, seeking their support. Before his arrival, Defense Minister Sabahattin Cakmakoglu told state-run TRT television that Turkey did not "at this moment" approve of an attack on Iraq.

Aside from worries over its economy, Turkey fears that an attack on Saddam would prompt Kurds in northern Iraq to declare their own state -- fueling Turkey's own Kurdish movement. Kurds in northern Iraq rebelled after the Gulf War, in which Iraqi soldiers were driven from Kuwait.

"We've been very clear ... expressing our firm opposition to a Kurdish state in northern Iraq," Wolfowitz told reporters after meeting Ecevit.

In his interview, Saddam called Washington's move against him a "Zionist-American (aggression) against the Arab world represented by Palestine and Iraq."

Saddam also praised suicide attacks against Israel, saying they will be "recorded in our history with shining letters."

"Whenever a (suicide) attack occurs against the enemy, I feel as if I carried it out myself and every Arab should look at these acts this way," Saddam said.

According to an April official Iraqi news agency report, suicide bombers' families have been receiving $25,000 from Saddam, who likes to be seen as the Palestinians' best ally and equate Iraq's plight with that of the Palestinians.