Hussein Girds for ‘Foreign Aggression’

Iraq put itself on a war footing Saturday night, dividing the country into four military districts under the command of President Saddam Hussein, with the heartland cities of Baghdad and Tikrit to be defended by Hussein’s second son, Qusai, commander of the elite Republican Guards.

The four new regional leaderships were ordered to “take the necessary steps to repulse and destroy any foreign aggression,” the state-run Iraqi News Agency announced.

The president retained for himself the authority to use aircraft and surface-to-surface missiles against an expected invasion by U.S. and British forces, according to the order, Presidential Decree No. 61, the news agency said.

But ignoring the portents of an imminent invasion, or seeking to prevent it, Iraq earlier Saturday invited chief U.N. weapons inspectors Hans Blix and Mohamed ElBaradei to fly to Baghdad and resolve any remaining disarmament issues at the “earliest suitable time.”

The suggestion that Blix and ElBaradei make their third visit to this capital in four months was a way for Iraq to emphasize its view that the U.N. inspections that began in November are working and that only a few outstanding issues remain, which Iraq is willing to settle by cooperating with the inspectors.

Rather than rejecting the invitation out of hand, Blix said he would consider it seriously and consult with ElBaradei and the U.N. Security Council about whether to accept.

It was unclear what concessions Iraq might offer if Blix and ElBaradei returned to Baghdad.

“They have to be desperate to offer anything,” a Western diplomat said. “Only in the last day or two has it become clear that they are headed toward war.”

The diplomatic maneuver seemed unlikely to deter President Bush and his allies, British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar, who are meeting today in the Azores islands in the Atlantic. The summit is widely viewed as the last prelude to a war to change the Iraqi government and rid the country of its alleged weapons of mass destruction.

Gen. Amir Saadi, Hussein’s advisor on disarmament, drafted the invitation to the chief U.N. weapons inspectors “to discuss ways to speed up joint cooperation between Iraq and the parties they represent on all aspects, particularly of issues considered pending by Blix and ElBaradei,” said a statement by the Iraqi Foreign Ministry.

Speaking on CNN, Blix said: “We will have to give serious thought to what the answer will be.”

He noted that he and ElBaradei had been to Baghdad in mid-January and mid-February to confer with the regime on outstanding disarmament issues. “However, the situation is a little different now -- tense,” Blix said.

The two arms inspectors are due to appear before the council Monday and report in detail what questions remain to be answered by the Iraqis for them to get a clean report from Blix’s U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission and ElBaradei’s International Atomic Energy Agency.

The number of observers still in Baghdad has dropped by more than a third, to about 70, and one source with U.N. staff in Iraq said that the inspectors have been informed of a special flight Wednesday that could be used to evacuate them in case of war.

Also Saturday, tens of thousands of Iraqis took part in demonstrations in Baghdad, Tikrit, Karbala and other cities, shouting their defiance of the United States and vowing their fealty to Hussein.

As part of a government-organized campaign to show the world that Iraqis support their leader and are ready to fiercely resist any U.S.-British plan to topple their government, the demonstrators marched, brandished weapons and shouted pro-Hussein slogans.

In Tikrit -- the home city of Hussein, about 100 miles north of Baghdad -- thousands of people, including high school and college students, marched along a main street, led by activists of the ruling Arab Baath Socialist Party wearing green military uniforms.

“Bush! Bush! Listen well! We all love Saddam Hussein!” a large group of female students chanted in English.

Local party leaders and members of the city administration who watched the demonstration from a reviewing stand were protected by numerous guards with Kalashnikovs and submachine guns positioned on sidewalks and on the roofs of one- and two-story buildings nearby. A Toyota pickup with a heavy submachine gun mounted on it was parked on a side street.

“Americans don’t understand anything about our country,” said one of the marchers, Wad Khadim, 12. “Many of them don’t like their own leaders, and they can’t understand how we all can love our president.”

At the other end of the age spectrum, two octogenarian sisters sat in their garden near a similar march in Baghdad and lamented in excellent English over sweet tea what has happened to the United States they loved when as young girls they were educated by American missionaries.

“Your democracy is a hypocrisy,” Naria Abbas told a visitor.

“Nobody wants to be ruled by someone else,” chipped in her sister, Souad. “You claim democracy only when it suits you.”

Naria said the two don’t care what happens to them but worry about the trauma and fear being inflicted by the United States on their country’s children.

“I have a grandson who painted airplanes dropping bombs on people,” she said. “His mother said, ‘Why don’t you draw flowers instead?’ ”

She said the 6-year-old answered, “They don’t drop bombs on flowers.”

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Special correspondent Sergei L. Loiko in Tikrit contributed to this report.