- BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraqi
President Saddam Hussein hailed Iraqi military efforts to resist a U.S.-led
invasion to overthrow him on Monday and said the invaders had suffered
heavy losses.
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- "Be patient, victory is coming," Saddam said
in an address on state television, praising the "valiant" contribution
of the Iraqi military in resisting a U.S. and British invasion that began
on Thursday.
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- Wearing military uniform and reading a speech from behind
a podium, Saddam praised Iraqi commanders including at Umm Qasr, where
U.S.-led tanks, ground-attack jets, artillery and infantry have failed
to dislodge more than 120 Iraqi Republican Guards.
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- It was not clear where or when the 20-minute speech was
recorded but the fact that Saddam mentioned successes in Umm Qasr and other
battles suggested it had been made in the last day or two. Behind Saddam
was a white wall and an Iraqi flag.
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- He also said "victory is very near" in Basra,
southern Iraq, which U.S. and British tank units were still trying to secure.
He called on defenders of Baghdad and the northern city of Mosul to hold
firm, saying "despicable enemies would be defeated."
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- Saddam said Iraqi forces had inflicted serious losses
on U.S.-led forces. He said that victory was coming and that the invaders
were "trapped" by heroic Iraqi resistance.
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- "The more they lose, the more they will bombard
you," he said, but pledging "to do all we can to humiliate the
enemy."
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- Reuters correspondents in Baghdad and elsewhere in the
Middle East said they were confident that the man on television was Saddam.
The Iraqi leader has a handful of look-alikes who sometimes stand in for
him but rarely speak.
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- Speculation has abounded about Saddam's fate since the
war started with air strikes on Baghdad intended to kill him. Some reports
said he might be dead, others that he was so badly wounded he had to receive
a blood transfusion.
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- ADDRESS RECORDED
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- The Defense Department had no immediate comment on Saddam's
speech, but privately some U.S. defense officials said they remained skeptical
whether the Iraqi leader's remarks were live or taped earlier.
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- British army spokesman Group Captain Al Lockwood told
Fox TV called the speech another "propaganda stunt." "It
could have been pre-recorded. There was no real factual evidence there."
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- Saddam rarely, if ever, appears live on television. As
the speech ended, new explosions hit the Iraqi capital.
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- Within three hours of the first U.S.-led attack on Baghdad
on Thursday, a tired-looking Saddam appeared on television, in a military
uniform, urging his people to fight. But the CIA says it could have been
pre-recorded -- even though he referred in the address to the start of
the raid at dawn.
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