Saddam criticises US rescue efforts

President Saddam Hussein of Iraq has said his country would have offered help for the relief effort in the United States if it had been asked.

The Iraqi news agency quoted him as saying American attacks on Iraq had given his people good experience of rescue work and they would have helped for humanitarian reasons and not for the sake of the American government.

He said the Americans should have used Iraqi help in restoring essential services in New York, citing what he described as the swift rehabilitation of infrastructure in Iraq after the Gulf War.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service