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Saddam Commemorates Baath Party With Calls for Defeating the U.S.
BAGHDAD, July 17 (IslamOnline & News
Agencies) - As Iraqi President Saddam Hussein commemorated 33 years of Baath (Renaissance) Party rule on Tuesday, an Iraqi opposition group alleged that an Iraqi citizen lost his tongue for criticizing the Iraqi leader, Western news agencies reported.
The Iraqi President said - in a televised speech marking the July revolution that brought his ruling party to power 33 years ago - that the western countries' vicious schemes against Iraq would be thwarted, news agencies said.
He went on to say that the U.S. and its allies would face one disappointment after another, referring to Russia's recent victory in forcing the U.N. Security Council to put off a plan aimed at revamping the sanctions on Iraq.
"We are arriving, with the help of God, the Almighty, at what pleases our friends and strikes our enemies with one disappointment after another," he told Iraqis.
"Your enemies' vicious schemes will end up in the abyss," he said.
The U.S.-British plan sought to revamp the 11-year-old U.N. sanctions by easing Iraqi purchases of civilian goods but stiffening already tight controls on oil and goods with military uses (so called "dual-purpose" items).
It was shelved after Russia threatened to use its Security Council veto to kill the draft resolution.
Saddam also claimed Iraq was stronger than 10 years ago when a U.S.-led multinational force ejected Iraqi troops from Kuwait during the Gulf War in 1991, Western news agencies reported.
"Our will power and our capability to build and to make better choices are, with the help of God, stronger now than before the beginning of the confrontation in the eternal Umm al Maarik [Gulf War]," Saddam said.
Saddam urged the Palestinians to continue their Intifada, or uprising, against Israel by calling on them to tell their enemies to "stop abusing the Arab nation".
The BBC online service reported that Baghdad had categorically rejected the changes to the sanctions; last month it halted oil exports in protest. These were promptly resumed when the U.N. Security Council agreed to extend the oil-for-food program for five more months, in place of an overhaul of the sanctions.
Iraq has moved quickly to reward the countries it saw as having supported its case, including Russia, by promising them priority in the allocation of business contracts.
Syria has also been offered preferential treatment - a new sign of the rapprochement between the two countries, which are ruled by rival branches of the pan-Arab Baath party.
A congratulatory message from Syria's President Bashar al-Assad, marking National Day, appears to reciprocate Iraq's move towards warmer relations.
It is the first such message from a Syrian leader in more than 20 years. Relations between Iraq and Syria have been poor ever since Damascus backed Iran in its long-running war with Iraq in the 1980s.
Syria also took part in the U.S.-led alliance that forced Iraq out of Kuwait in the Gulf War.
The first thaw in their relations came in 1997 when Syria approached Iraq for contracts under its U.N. oil-for-food deal.
On another note, the Iraq Press News Agency, a London-based news portal that claims governmental independence, reported Tuesday that in the presence of a huge crowd, the tongue of an Iraqi man was chopped off allegedly for swearing at President Saddam Hussein, eyewitnesses said.
There was no independent confirmation of the report, although human rights abuses in Iraq have been widely condemned.
The man, Zaher Abdul-Hussein, allegedly used blasphemous words against Saddam during a quarrel with a police officer, who subsequently reported him to the security services.
The amputation, witnesses told the opposition group, took place in a public square in the al-Jadeeda district of Diwaneya, 180 kilometers south of Baghdad.
Three more Iraqis have already had their tongues amputated for similar charges in the city of Hilla, 110 kilometers south of Baghdad. Saddam Commandos perpetrated the penalty in a public space, reportedly in front of an audience of thousands of civilians.
The government has never acknowledged reports of tongue amputations, but the state-run media has previously carried stories with pictures of army deserters who had their ears chopped off and foreheads branded.
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