Saddam reportedly wants live debate with Bush

3.00pm

WASHINGTON - Iraqi President Saddam Hussein has challenged President George W Bush to a live, international television debate about the Iraq crisis, CBS News reported today.

The Iraqi leader also made clear that he would not accept demands that he destroy missiles which the United Nations says have a longer than permitted range.

CBS News anchor Dan Rather said he had an exclusive three-hour interview with Saddam and that the Iraqi leader envisioned a debate with Bush along the lines of US presidential campaign debates.

"I am ready to conduct a direct dialogue -- a debate -- with your president. I will say what I want and he will say what he wants," Saddam was quoted as saying.

"This will be an opportunity for him, if he's committed to war, this will be an opportunity to convince the world."

"This is something proposed in earnest, " Saddam said. "Out of my respect for the people of the United States and my respect for the people of Iraq and the people of the world. I call for this because war is not a joke."

"As leaders," Saddam said in his invitation to Bush, "Why don't we use this opportunity?"

Saddam also flatly denied that any of his most advanced al-Samoud missiles are in violation of UN mandates, Rather said.

"Iraq is allowed to prepare proper missiles and we are committed to that," Saddam was quoted as saying. "We do not have missiles that go beyond the proscribed range."

Rather said Saddam strongly indicated Iraq will resist efforts to begin the destruction of the missiles as demanded by by chief UN weapons inspector Hans Blix.

White House spokesman Ari Fleischer rejected the debate offer, saying it was "not a serious statement."

He said the notable part of the interview was Saddam's apparent refusal to destroy the al-Samoud missiles.

Saddam faces a test of whether he will destroy dozens of the missiles by March 1 as ordered by Blix. Destruction of the missiles, which have a range that exceeds UN limits, would be a blow to Iraq as it prepares for a possible invasion by US forces.

"He (Saddam) won't even acknowledge that the missiles exceed the limit. This is one further and troubling piece of evidence that he has weapons that he has both failed to acknowledge or destroy. This underscores the very nature of the threat and the problem in the first place," Fleischer said.

Rather said he found Saddam to be outwardly calm but expecting that war will come.

"He know that the time for the invasion is very near. He takes seriously what President Bush has been saying," Rather said.

Saddam believes that if it comes to war, Iraq will have to "absorb a tremendous first and maybe second punch from the United States and its allies" but his country will be able to withstand that punch and emerge undefeated, Rather said, adding that Saddam did not accept that he lost the 1991 Gulf war.

Saddam made clear he did not plan to flee into exile before any invasion, Rather said.

- REUTERS