President Saddam Hussein said last night Iraqis did not want a war but vowed his nation would defeat any US military action to oust his government.
"Your brothers in Iraq wish that God would spare them evil and avoid fighting," Saddam told a group of Arab parliamentarians gathered in Baghdad to show their opposition to a possible US military strike.
"[But] if God chooses that we have to fight, we won't disappoint you," he said. "We will fight them in a way that will please you and annoy [the] enemies";
Saddam said earlier Iraq wanted an overall solution, based on UN Security Council resolutions, to its crisis with the United States which is centered on alleged production of weapons of mass destruction.
More than 100 MPs from all Arab states except Kuwait and Saudi Arab ended a meeting in Baghdad yesterday by opposing the threat of US military action against Iraq and calling for lifting UN sanctions imposed on Iraq for its 1990 invasion of Kuwait.
"The union rejects and strongly condemns American threats and preparations to wage a war against Iraq," said a communique issued after a two-day meeting called by the Arab Parliamentary Union.
President Bush has made "regime change" in Baghdad a priority and his administration has used the past few weeks to set out its case for military action against Saddam, whom it accuses of developing weapons of mass destruction.
Mr Bush said yesterday he would call on world leaders next week at the United Nations to recognise that Saddam is duping the world by developing weapons of mass destruction.
Iraq has said for years that such weapons have been destroyed already and refuses to allow the return of UN weapons inspectors until the lifting of UN sanctions.