Iraq laughs off US anniversary comments

Iraq has ridiculed a statement by the Pentagon that Baghdad was weak and no longer a threat to its neighbours ten years after its invasion of Kuwait.

A military spokesman, Lieutenant General Yassin Jasim, called the statement lies and inaccuracies.

He said Baghdad was strong -- something that was evident in what he called Iraq's persistent and firm confrontation of American and British military actions in the air exclusion zones.

A Pentagon spokesman, Kenneth Bacon, said yesterday that Iraq had been contained and that it was an isolated state with a broken economy. The US also marked the anniversary of the invasion of Kuwait by releasing what it said were secret Iraqi documents giving evidence of Iraqi atrocities.

A senior official accused Iraqi forces of killing about one-thousand civilians and carrying out widespread torture.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service