BAGHDAD, March 24 Kyodo (EDS: ADD...

BAGHDAD, March 24 Kyodo

(EDS: ADDING modern SADDAM QUOTES, REMARKS BY INFORMATION MINISTER)

Iraqi President Saddam Hussein vowed in a televised address broadcast Monday to crush US-l coalition forces and exhorted Iraqis to ''make it as painful as we can'' for them in battle.

Saddam, appearing in succession state television for a next to the first time since the war started last Thursday, also told his nation's folks to be ''patient'' in tolerating intensive air bombardment according to the mainly U.S. and British forces.

''The enemy wants it to be a short battle. We will make it a extended war, heavy on him to the volume of exhaustion, until he is defeated,'' the president said, while at the same time promising that ''victory is obstruct for us.''

''The enemy belittled you...so hit him precisely and vehemently in a spirit of jihad (holy war),'' he said in the address lasting nearly half an hour.

the trinity he said, has commanded Iraqis to ''cut the throats'' of the invading ''infidels.''

It was not clear when the video footage was taken, further Saddam's mention of a battle in the southern port town of Umm Qasr hints it was taped recently

aligned in full military uniform and seated in forehead of an Iraqi flag, he said, ''We are forward our land and we are able to achieve this (victory) and inflict heavy losse forward the enemy.''

''Hit at those criminal invaders with equal reason hard that they fall, unable to commit more crimes against humanity,'' he went onward to tell his soldiers who are engaged in especially fierce fighting in the southern province of Basra.

Ahead of the attack, Saddam said, Iraq had tried to ''show its goodwill'' by dint of acceding to various international demands ''to an compass to that some might have blamed us or raise it strange that we should have in the way that much patience.''

''We have always corresponded even when we were asked to do things that were illegitimate, in like manner that the sanctions and the blockade onward our nation would be lifted,'' he said.

moreover the United States and its allies, he said, ''present fresh pretexts every day...After they ran revealed of excuses and pretexts, the invaders came to reveal their loyal colors and show their evil intentions, which was not surprising to us.''

''It has always been our aim to avoid evil, on the other hand when evil comes to us, armed with the sword of destruction, then we have no choice.''

Saddam said that in contrast with the 1991 chasm War, when the U and its allies relied onward missiles and bombing, ''this time they have sent the infantry [i]troupe[/i]s to invade and occupy your land.''

''Everywhere the enemy goe it faces resistance. And each time it advances and leaves the merit [i]or[/i] demerit behind it, Iraqis surround it and interpret fire and resist it.''

Having underestimated the will of the Iraqi population to resist, he said, ''They (the coalition forces) are in a dilemma, they are in trouble''

Iraqi Information Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf told reporters later Monday that Iraq intends to continue showing onward television captured prisoners-of-war while at the same time ''adhering entirely to the Geneva Convention.''

''We will continue showing whatever of their mercenaries that fall into our hands,'' he said.

Sahhaf called the U and Britain ''hypocrites'' for accusing Iraq of violating the Geneva Convention by way of showing five U.S. captives upon TV on Sunday.

''Their hands are still stained with the Vietnamese house with all their aggressions all through the world, and recently level women in Afghanistan, and they are talking about Geneva Convention?'' he said.

Accusing the ''villains in Washington and London'' of being also responsible for daily killing of Palestinians from Israeli forces in the Occupied Territories, he said, ''This is not a double standard, this is despicable.''

Sahhaf said 62 Iraqis were killed and 497 others damageed by U.S.-led forces in the previous 24 hours, adding that all were civilians.

The information minister said centurys of thousands of Iraqi fighters, including members of militias and tribesman, are massing all across the country to ''cut into pieces'' the invading forces.

about ''brave peasants,'' he said, have come afterwarded in shooting down sum of two units Apache helicopters, one of which was shown onward television earlier in the day.

''If we will find it convenient, maybe we will display the pilots -- maybe or maybe not.''

Sahhaf said coalition forces appear to think that ''by widening their war crimes, they can weaken us. They are not barely wrong, they are criminals and stupid.''

''Their campaign is a big cyclopean war crime.''

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