Saddam Eyes Prime Time : Iraqi Leader Tapes Reply to Bush, Seeks U.S. Airing

Saddam Hussein escalated the Persian Gulf broadcast battle for world opinion today, announcing through aides that he has taped a reply to President Bush’s speech on Iraqi television and wants it aired on American TV.

The Iraqi president also told a Turkish newspaper that his country can fight for years and “could hurt” America.

Iraq’s ambassador to Washington, Mohammed Mashat, relayed the request to the State Department. Assistant Secretary of State John Kelly told him the U.S. government is “not a marketing agent,” the department said.

Unlike Iraq’s state-run television, which aired Bush’s speech Sunday, American networks are privately owned and the U.S. government cannot demand air time for Hussein. Kelly said the department would, however, help make a tape available to networks that want to use it.

Iraq’s deputy prime minister, Sadoun Hammadi, told a CNN correspondent in Baghdad that Hussein’s message, taped at an undisclosed time, lays out the Iraqi side of the crisis that began Aug. 2 with Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait.

“I think the president will try to explain in quiet language, in a simple language . . . our position,” Hammadi said.

Representatives in New York of ABC, CNN and NBC said the networks had not been contacted directly by Iraq and had made no decision on airing the tape.

“Our position from the beginning of this crisis is that we air nothing unless we screen it first,” NBC spokeswoman Katherine McQuay said.

An ABC spokeswoman, Sherry Rolands, said: “Until we have an official request (to broadcast it), we can’t respond to it. We haven’t seen the tape, and we’ve had no contact from the Iraqi government.”

Hussein’s statements have repeatedly been carried to American people over CNN since the invasion.

Hussein was quoted today as saying Iraq could hold out for “five or six” years against the trade embargo. The Turkish newspaper Milliyet also quoted him as saying Iraq “knows that America is the No. 1 superpower in the world. But we also are confident that we can hurt America.”

In other developments today:

The United States bolstered its military muscle in the Persian Gulf by flying in borrowed West German tanks capable of detecting poison gas in Iraq’s chemical warfare arsenal. The first 10 of 60 Fuchs anti-chemical tanks on loan from West Germany began leaving the U.S. Ramstein Air Base near Kaiserslautern today. The vehicles can suck chemicals into an electronic device that breaks them down for identification by computer.

Iraq’s information minister was quoted as saying that Iraq will knock out gulf oil fields if attacked by the U.S.-led multinational force upholding the U.N. trade embargo. The official also said, “Iraq will use all weapons at its disposal to respond to any aggression” intended to force its troops out of Kuwait. His comments were reported by the English-language daily Jordan Times.

Members of the French Foreign Legion headed to Saudi Arabia to join the multinational force.