Hussein Issues Boasts, Threats in TV Interview

A boastful and confident President Saddam Hussein indicated Monday that he will use chemical weapons only as a last resort, and he asserted that he and his military have maintained “our balance” by employing only conventional weapons thus far in the Persian Gulf War.

But, he added menacingly, the type of missiles that his forces have already fired at Israel and Saudi Arabia can be fitted with nuclear, chemical and biological warheads.

“We pray that not a lot of blood will be shed from any nation,” the Iraqi strongman said in his first public comments since the first week of the war. But, in a seeming inconsistency, he commented later that in the fighting to come, “Lots of blood will be shed . . . the Americans, the French, Saudi blood and Iraqi.”

Hussein’s remarks came during a 90-minute interview with Cable News Network correspondent Peter Arnett, the only Western journalist the Iraqis have permitted to remain in Baghdad while the U.S.-led allies wage their war on Iraq.

Asked how long the war will last, Hussein said, “Only God knows,” Arnett related. Arnett quoted him as adding that there is “not even one in a million” chance that Iraq will lose the war.

In the interview, the videotape of which is scheduled to be broadcast on CNN today, Hussein also attempted to justify his policy of using allied prisoners of war as human shields at potential bombing targets--a practice condemned as a violation of the Geneva Conventions. Western countries, he said, that have jailed Iraqi students as a security measure also have violated the Geneva Conventions.

In describing the circumstances of the interview, Arnett said he was taken from Baghdad’s Al Rashid Hotel, where he is largely confined, to an ordinary home in a Baghdad suburb, where he discovered three television cameras, two comfortable chairs and, eventually, the Iraqi president, dressed, as Arnett described him, “in an impeccable blue suit and a pretty tie.”

Arnett’s initial account of the interview, relayed by telephone to CNN headquarters, was limited to excerpted quotes and summaries of what Hussein had said. The newsman said he had no warning of the interview and indicated that he had not requested it.

During the interview, which Arnett described as “chilling,” Hussein continued his six-month-old strategy of attempting to break the allies’ resolve to drive him from Kuwait by appealing to grass-roots public opinion in the nations opposing him.

Arnett, reading from his notes during one of his several daily broadcasts from Baghdad--all subject to censorship by the regime--said the Iraqi leader told him that his principal reason for granting the interview was to thank civilians throughout the West for participating in anti-war rallies.

“I wish the Americans well, and pray none of their sons will die,” Arnett quoted Hussein as saying. “All of the people of Iraq are grateful to the noble souls demonstrating against the war in France, Germany and Spain and all others.”

“I asked what he had to say about claims by the United States that Iraq had opened its spigots in Kuwait and let oil pour into the gulf,” Arnett related. “The president responded that the United States has used oil as a weapon by attacking Iraqi tankers and oil installations on land. . . . Therefore, he said, if his field commanders used oil in the framework of self-defense, such as trenches filled with burning oil or other techniques, his commanders would be justified in their actions.

“I asked, ‘Do you reserve the right to use oil as a military weapon?’ He said, ‘I have said what I’ve said, and the issue is clear.’ ”

After saying that “only God knows” how long the war will last, Hussein said his troops “will win the admiration of the world with their fighting prowess.”

Hussein was also quoted as expressing anger toward “hypocritical Western politicians” for persuading him to release thousands of hostages in exchange for the chance for peace.

“If we had kept these 5,000 hostages here, would they still have attacked Baghdad?” Arnett quoted the president as saying.

Arnett’s attempts to pin Hussein down on his frequent chemical-weapons threat produced only equivocal answers. At first, the Iraqi leader said, “We shall use the weapons that shall be equal to the weapons used against us by our enemy.” Then, Arnett asked Hussein whether he would use chemical and biological weapons only if the allies use them first.

“I don’t mean that,” Arnett quoted him as saying. “I said, Iraq would use weapons that would equate to weapons used against us.”

Other comments Arnett attributed to Hussein are consistent with what many Arab and Asian analysts have said is the Iraqi president’s main goal in the war--to hold his own militarily for as long as possible, hoping that each day he survives will reinforce his image among Arabs and other Muslims who are now part of the international coalition against him.

“All the air superiority that you see now that has come upon us has failed,” Hussein was quoted as saying. “We have maintained our balance using only conventional weapons.

“We pray that not a lot of blood will be shed from any nation,” he said. And while mentioning that his conventionally armed missiles may be fitted with even more terrifying warheads to be used against Israel or Saudi Arabia, he said, “We pray we shall not be forced into taking a forced measure.

“Lots of blood will be shed,” he said. “Lots of blood. We’re referring to blood on every side--the Americans, the French, Saudi blood and Iraqi.”

After his summary of the questions and answers, Arnett said:

“The sense I got from the interview was that President Saddam Hussein was saying that he has been able to maintain the balance of the war using conventional weapons as of this point.

“He was suggesting, though, that as losses became too great, he may be obliged to use the unconventional weapons that he has at his disposal. I don’t think there was any threat at this point, but he said, let’s pray, basically, that if he does go that far, that the losses are not that great.”

Meanwhile, a five-person Cable News Network crew arrived in Baghdad on Monday armed with a portable “fly-away” satellite transmission dish, to be set up atop the Al Rashid Hotel. The dish will allow them to transmit Arnett’s interview, the first videotaped interview with Hussein since the outset of the war.

As the crew arrived, the other three U.S. TV networks continued to try, in vain, to obtain Iraqi visas for their own reporters. ABC and NBC repeatedly have been turned away at Iraqi’s foreign embassies.

CNN officials said the network had dispatched reporter Margaret Lowrie, producer Vito Maggiolo, cameraman David Rust and engineers Nic Robertson and Jay Ayer to Baghdad in a four-truck convoy from the CNN office in Amman, Jordan.

CNN said it will broadcast the Hussein interview once Arnett and the Iraqi Information Ministry have both edited it. According to a CNN spokesman, the edited interview will be transmitted via satellite transponder to Atlanta, where it will be reviewed before it is put on the air with the usual cautionary note that the information has been cleared by Iraqi censors.

CNN spokesmen maintain that broadcast of such interviews, even if censored and one-sided, are necessary because they offer the Iraqi perspective.

Times staff writer Dennis McDougal, in Los Angeles, contributed to this article.