Saddam: Iraqis Ready To Fight Holy War

Saddam Hussein said Tuesday that Iraqis were ready to fight a holy war against the United States, which the Iraqi leader accused of using lies and military might in its bid to rule the world.

In a vitriolic televised address to Iraqis to mark Christmas Eve, Saddam said the world was entering a new year "under unique circumstances ... which have been manufactured by the forces of evil and darkness in order to create a situation of instability, chaos and tension."

Saddam said the United States and its Zionist ally — meaning Israel — were bent on waging war against Iraq in a first step to spread their "hegemony ... across the world and control fortunes and future" of other countries.

The Iraqi leader used his address, read out by a television announcer, to again reject U.S. and British claims that his regime possesses weapons of mass destruction.

Saddam also said his regime wanted to cooperate with U.N. weapons inspectors conducting almost daily searches in Iraq to verify Baghdad no longer possesses chemical, biological or nuclear arms.

"We are confident that the outcome of the (U.N.) inspection operations will be a big shock to the United States and will expose all the American lies," Saddam's statement said.

The Iraqi ruler's comments follow sharp criticism by the United Nations' chief weapons inspectors last week that Baghdad's Dec. 7 weapons inspection to the Security Council was largely a rehash of old information, and that they would be seeking more data from Iraq.

"An opportunity was missed in the declaration to give a lot of evidence," Blix told reporters after reporting to the U.N. Security Council. The declaration, which was required by council Resolution 1441, was supposed to be a comprehensive account of Iraq's nuclear, biological and chemical weapons as well as long-range missiles, and the programs to produce them.

The United States has said the declaration is so inadequate that it amounts to a "material breach" of the council resolution. Britain has said the declaration is a lie. The two Western allies have threatened to invade Iraq unless it cooperates fully with the U.N. inspection commission and eliminates its weapons of mass destruction.

In an exclusive interview Tuesday, Iraq's chief representative to the U.N. mission said he saw nothing to justify criticisms expressed by chief U.N. inspector Hans Blix and Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency.

"We have nothing to add, really, of new information, because the information we gave is the real and complete information," Gen. Hossam Mohammed Amin told The Associated Press.

Baghdad, however, was "willing to reach an understanding" with Blix and ElBaradei, Amin said.

Amin also said his government would not threaten Iraqi scientists who accept invitations from U.N. inspectors to leave Iraq for further interviews about Baghdad's weapons programs.

Resolution 1441 gives the inspectors the right to interview scientists outside Iraq, with their families accompanying them abroad, to reduce the chance that they may come under pressure from the Baghdad government.

An Iraqi scientist interviewed by U.N. inspectors Tuesday said Baghdad is not hiding any weapons of mass destruction.

"I explained to them (the inspectors) all that I know and that we do not have anything to hide," Sabah Abdel-Nour, a former member of Iraq's nuclear program, told reporters at Baghdad's University of Technology where he works as a professor.

CBS News Correspondent Lee Cowan reports Abdel-Nour's boss was quick to back him up.

"This university is clean, like any other place in Iraq," University President Mazin Mohammad Ali Ju'ma said.

Abdel-Nour said the U.N. inspectors were objective and friendly and their "questions were mainly about what has been done or any progress which has been achieved in Iraq since 1998."

"They wanted to inspect whether this university has anything of their interest, they were inquiring whether there is any advanced equipment which could be used or misused," he said during a press conference.

Abdel-Nour refused to be quizzed in private, telling U.N. inspectors that he wanted Iraqi officials present during the interview.

Meanwhile, teams of U.N. and IAEA officials resumed inspections of numerous sites Tuesday.

An inspection by biological experts brought a halt to classes at Baghdad College of Veterinary Medicine. Cowan reports students weren't allowed in or out.

The guards claimed that was at the request of the inspectors themselves.

Although students were angry, many said if the inconvenience prevents war, so be it.

Missile teams visited five sites connected to arms production in and around Baghdad.

The Iraqi Information Ministry said inspectors visited the Hateen Company, a complex of factories 45 miles south of Baghdad that produces artillery ammunition.