Text of report by the Iraqi news agency INA 23 December 1998

Saddam Hussein called on his countrymen to resist the strikes

The recent US-UK aggression against Iraq had no legal basis or justification whatsoever, not even the justifications that the administration of the liar and criminal Clinton fabricated for it.

The newspaper `Al-Thawrah', speaking for the Arab Socialist Ba'th Party, says in an article today that the aggression against Iraq, from beginning to end, was a US-UK scenario acted in a brutal Zionist spirit.

The paper adds that this scenario was written and the main and secondary roles were assigned to characters behind the UN Security Council's back, despite the United Nations and its charter and despite the provisions of the international law and the Security Council resolutions.

The paper explains that what happened was aggression in the full legal sense of the word, according to the political and moral definition of aggression.

The United States and Britain bear full responsibility for it.

It is the duty of the Security Council to hold them accountable, condemn them, and force them to pay full compensation to Iraq for its human and material losses.

They must pledge not to attempt to harm Iraq in the future and to stop all unilateral actions against it.

Sanctions must be lifted

All illegal measures imposed on Iraq by the United States and Britain must be annulled, such as imposing the no-fly zones and the overt as well as covert conspiring against the Iraqi national government, because the recent aggression gave new tangible evidence of this government's bonding with its people.

This is in addition to lifting the embargo without any conditions.

The paper stresses the need for the Security Council to fulfil its obligations, since anything short of this will place the Security Council in a position where it stands condemned and impotent and is seen to be discriminating against member states of the United Nations.

The paper says: By all legal, political, and ethical standards, abidance by Security Council resolutions should not be confined to one party, namely Iraq, while these same resolutions are violated every day by the United States and some of Iraq's neighbours under the very eyes and nose of the United Nations" .