Posted on 03/21/2003 4:28:03 AM PST by Indy Pendance
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Top Iraqi cabinet ministers, one of them brandishing an assault rifle, denounced the United States on Friday as a "superpower of villains" and said that U.S.-led invaders would be incinerated in Baghdad.
"Victory is guaranteed," Interior Minister Mahmoud Diyab al-Ahmed told a news conference, defiantly waving a shiny Kalashnikov and standing in front of a picture of President Saddam Hussein and the Iraqi flag.
He and Information Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf blasted President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair as criminals for launching an invasion overnight.
"They are a superpower of villains," Sahaf said of the United States. "They are a superpower of Al Capone," he added, referring to the 1920s Chicago gangster.
He called Bush the "leader of the international criminal gang of bastards."
And he vowed that the Iraqi capital would not be captured even if other cities fell. "Baghdad will remain defiant and its walls will be an incinerator for the invaders," he said.
Ahmed also said that "All of us, all our children, are for Saddam and for Iraq. We will sacrifice our lives for Saddam and Iraq." He said even his own 12-year-old son carried a rifle.
"We don't want to kill the people of American and Britain, we dont have a problem with them, but they got a first taste of what to expect yesterday when 12 of them were incinerated," Ahmed added.
A U.S. Marine helicopter crashed in Kuwait before dawn on Friday, killing eight British and four U.S. soldiers, British officials said.
DENIES PORT CAPTURED
And Ahmed said the vital Iraqi port of Umm Qasr would not fall. "This is silly talk. Umm Qasr is an Iraqi port and is going to remain an Iraqi port," he said. "It will be hard for them to take it."
Later a British commander said that at least 250 Iraqis had surrendered to U.S. Marines at the port. Washington and London accuse Baghdad of possessing weapons of mass destruction, a charge rejected by Iraq.
Sahaf, in military uniform, also denied reports of a broad advance by U.S.-led forces into southern Iraq or that many Iraqi soldiers were surrendering.
"I realized that they (U.S.) distributed a video tape that appeared to show their tanks advancing into Iraq and their troops appearing to take Iraqi prisoners. These are not Iraqi soldiers," he said.
Sahaf also denounced leaders of neighboring Kuwait as "jackasses" for allowing the U.S. and Britain to use the country as a launch p
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