IRAQ REMAINS DEFIANT

national | miscellaneous | news report Saturday March 22, 2003 13:48 by saladin

Iraqi media defiant despite onslaught

Iraqi satellite TV, which can be received around the world, carried a news conference by Trade Minister Muhammad Mahdi Salih in which he invoked the deaths of British troops in the 1920s as a warning to the current attackers. "In 1920, the British Army was the most powerful army in the world. One hundred thousand soldiers of the British Army were killed then. Their tombs are in Baghdad and other Iraqi governorates. The Iraqis achieved this victory through the use of primitive weapons," Mr Salih said in Arabic. "They resisted the invaders and triumphed over them by using sticks and clubs. Using sticks and rifles, they triumphed over the British Army's will in 1920 when the latter used guns, aircraft, and tanks."