Iraq will not turn 'other cheek'

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Iraq will inflict massive casualties on American troops if the United States launches an invasion to topple Saddam Hussein, a senior Iraqi legislator declared Monday.\nIraqi parliament speaker Saadoun Hammadi told a group of legislators from the European Parliament that Iraq "will not turn the other cheek" should the United States use force to make Saddam's regime give up banned weapons programs.\n"American aggression will end up in a catastrophe for them," Hammadi said. "They will incur casualties beyond their imagination."\nU.N. resolutions passed since Iraq's defeat by a U.S.-led coalition in the 1991 Gulf War prohibit nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programs in Iraq. Thousands of such weapons were destroyed under a U.N. inspection program in the 1990s.\nThe United States and Britain insist Saddam is still hiding banned weaponry and say they will disarm Iraq by force. The United States has deployed almost 90,000 troops in the Gulf region, a number that may double soon.\nIraq has steadfastly denied it has weapons of mass destruction, but it is under pressure to make concessions and show progress in the U.N. inspections process in hopes of blocking any U.S.-British diplomatic bid for military action.\nThe inspectors have yet to find anything conclusive and Iraq has claimed that U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell will fabricate evidence against Saddam when he appears before the U.N. Security Council on Wednesday to try to prove the Iraqis are hiding banned weapons.\nPowell shot back Monday in a commentary published in the Wall Street Journal, warning that the United States "will not shrink from war." Though he won't give the council a "smoking gun," Powell promised to present evidence of the "programs that Iraq is working so hard to hide."\n"We will, in sum, offer a straightforward, sober and compelling demonstration that Saddam is concealing the evidence of his weapons of mass destruction, while preserving the weapons themselves," he said.\nHe also alleged that Iraq "continues to acquire banned equipment, with proscribed imports arriving as recently as last month."\nSaddam is expected to offer his own assessment on the U.S.-Iraqi confrontation in a television interview with left-wing former British lawmaker and anti-war activist Tony Benn. The interview was taped Sunday and will be broadcast in the next day or two, Benn said.\nFacing a U.S.-led invasion, Iraq invited the two chief U.N. weapons inspectors back to Baghdad and has promised the government would "do our best" to make Saturday's visit successful.\nThe chief inspectors hope they will win meaningful concessions from the Iraqis on reconnaissance U-2 flights and private interviews with Iraqi scientists.\nThe talks with chief U.N. weapons inspectors Hans Blix and Mohamed ElBaradei will come just before their next important report to the council, on Feb. 14. It will be the second round of Baghdad talks for Blix and ElBaradei in three weeks.\nIn Monday's round of daily arms inspections, inspectors found the abandoned case of a small rocket and a "modified, damaged and abandoned warhead," at a missile parts factory south of Baghdad, the Iraqi News Agency said.