BAGHDAD, Aug 11: Iraq seized gleefully on Sunday on growing resistance in Europe to a new US war to oust Saddam Hussein.

The Iraqi president reportedly warned that his countrymen will fight any invader to the last.

In London, left-wing Labour MP George Galloway, a long-time friend of Iraq, wrote in The Mail on Sunday that Saddam had told him he would allow UN disarmament inspectors free access if only they would visit.

He added that Saddam, in a meeting in a secret bunker so far underground it took 20 seconds to reach by lift, had also said Iraq would abide by all UN resolutions.

Echoing the words of Britain’s wartime leader Winston Churchill, the Iraqi strongman said: “If they come, we are ready. We will fight them on the streets, from the rooftops, from house to house. We will never surrender.

“Churchill and the British meant what they promised their would-be invaders. So do we,” Saddam said in the interview.

In Baghdad, newspapers were delighted notably by Germany’s outspoken refusal to join an attack, seeing it as a rejection of US foreign policy in general.

“The European view at this point is marked by a rejection of the unilateral, contemptuous and arrogant American policy which leads to flagrant interference in the internal affairs of states and disrespect for international law,” said Babel, run by Saddam’s elder son Uday.

The refusal by Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder to engage Germany in any attack on Iraq, and loud opposition from ministers, MPs and religious leaders in Britain “are proof of the rejection of the whole of American policy.”

“It shows that Western citizens understand that American objectives in Iraq and the world are not compatible with those of other countries,” Babel said.

Russia adamantly opposes military strikes on Iraq and has long pressed for a diplomatic solution to return arms inspectors to Baghdad in exchange for a lifting of sanctions in force since 1991.

The new French government has also expressed reservations.

In Moscow, Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov and UN Secretary General Kofi Annan agreed on the need to find a political solution to Iraq.

The Kremlin said Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke on the telephone with Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and agreed they “have a similar position concerning the need to find a political solution to the Iraqi problem.”

Ath-Thawra, the ruling Baath Party newspaper saw “a unanimous Arab and international stance against the unjustified American threats.”

“Day after day, Arab and international rejection of American threats to attack Iraq grows, and the voices which are in solidarity with Iraq and critical of the evil American administration strengthen,” the daily said.

Ath-Thawra noted that reservations had been expressed “even by the closest allies of the American administration and by certain of its own people, which has brought little (President George) Bush to tone down his language and promise to be patient,” before taking any decision to strike Baghdad.

Iraq denied on Sunday US media reports that it has rehabilitated a laboratory closed down by UN weapons inspectors in 1996 with the aim of producing agents for biological warfare.

General Hossam Mohammad Amin, head of Iraq’s National Monitoring Directorate, dismissed the reports as “lies” intended to serve as a pretext for a US military strike.

He told a press conference that the laboratory at al-Dura, south of Baghdad, had made vaccines against foot and mouth disease before falling foul of the weapons inspectors.

“UNSCOM acted arbitrarily in 1996 deliberately destroying negative pressure systems in the laboratory to prevent Iraq from producing a vaccine essential for its livestock and destroying its economy,” he charged.

However, in August 1995 when Iraq finally confessed in detail to the United Nations it had made biological weapons, al-Dura was listed as a site taken over for biological weapons in addition to the continued production of vaccines.

UNSCOM said the negative pressure systems were de-activated so they could no longer be used for research into and production of lethal biological agents.—AFP