- BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraq
will fight much harder than it did in the Gulf War over Kuwait if the United
States launches an attack in the coming months, Iraq's trade minister said
on Monday.
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- Trade Minister Mohammed Mehdi Saleh said Iraq would fight
differently to how it did when a U.S.-led coalition ended its occupation
of Kuwait in a five-week battle in early 1991.
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- "In 1991 whether we withdraw from Kuwait or not
(was the question), here (it is) whether we give our land or not, whether
we give our future or not, whether we give our houses or not -- so this
is what we are fighting for," Saleh told a Spanish delegation in English.
"All Iraqi people are fighters."
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- He did not elaborate on how Iraq would fight differently.
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- Saleh reiterated that the country was prepared for war,
which he said could start "at any time."
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- He said citizens had been given an extra three months
of food rations for storing in case war broke out and another ration would
be handed out next month.
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- He said Iraqis had already been given weapons months
ago to defend their homeland.
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- "When we fight in the streets, in cities and villages,
food will be available and guns will be available. We will inflict the
heaviest loses on them and they will be repelled from our country if they
dare to attack us," he said.
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- The U.S. is doubling the size of its forces in the region
for a possible U.S.-led invasion if a United Nations mission to disarm
Iraq peacefully fails.
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- Baghdad has repeatedly denied U.S. allegations that it
has weapons of mass destruction or is developing them.
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- Iraq already distributes essential foodstuffs each month
to every family, but earlier this year it began giving out double rations
every two months.
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- The rations include wheat, rice, cooking oil and powdered
milk.
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- The food is imported by Iraq under an oil-for-food deal
agreed with the United Nations in 1996 to ease the hardships of an economic
embargo imposed on Iraq after it invaded Kuwait.
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