SADDAM HUSSEIN yesterday, responded to the United States cruise missile assault with a bravura performance of defiance laced with bombast.
"Once again the humiliated and lowly Americans have come to perpetrate their often-repeated cowardly act by hiding behind technological development," he told his people.
Dressed in his field-marshal's uniform, the Iraqi leader delivered his speech to national radio and television in his usual deadpan style. It lost a good deal in the unofficial translations put out by news agencies and foreign broadcasts.
"The aggressors have come again with their cowardly and humiliating raid to register for themselves the third cursed comeback along with what they deserve for the debasement of their aggressive weapons," he intoned. "But the raid will be full of sublime meaning for the noble Iraqis and their courageous stands and great steadfastness.
"The missile aggression started at 9 a.m. of the morning of September 3rd, 1996. It will be a glorious day the Iraqi people will write down, in the name of the Almighty, in their chronicle of great honour. For the aggressors it will be a day of cursing in history as well as on the level of the globe, following the curse that has befallen them from God."
President Saddam did not trouble to refer to President Clinton's unilateral extension of the southern no-fly zone. Instead, he flatly (and implausibly) announced that from now on his forces should ignore air restrictions imposed after the 1991 Gulf War, and attack US and allied aircraft.
"You men of the air defence and falcons of the skies, consider from now their damned imaginary lines north of the 36th parallel and south of the 32nd parallel, non-existent.
"Hit back with capability and efficiency, relying on God the Almighty, any hostile plane the aggressors fly to violate the airspace of your great country throughout Iraq from now and in the future."
President Saddam boasted that "the sons of the twin rivers" (the Tigris and the Euphrates) had shot down a number of US missiles. Iraq's losses had been minimal.
Baghdad's most articulate defender of the regime, deputy prime minister, Mr Tariq Aziz, told CNN in a telephone interview that Iraqi military action in the north had been a legitimate response to a request from a Kurdish faction for help against its rivals and "the adventurism of Iran".
In contrast, the US missile attack was in breach of international law.