- BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraqi
domestic television showed footage on Saturday of President Saddam Hussein
in a meeting with his two sons, top aides and military commanders.
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- The president, wearing military fatigues and smiling,
sat in a windowless room at a large table. Seated near him were his sons
Qusay and Uday.
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- Iraqi television said the footage was from Saturday.
The room where the meeting was held appeared to be different from ones
seen in previous videotapes of the Iraqi president.
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- Earlier on Saturday, Iraq's information minister read
a message he said was from Saddam urging Iraqi armed forces and ordinary
citizens to step up attacks to defeat the U.S.-led invasion.
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- "The criminals will be humiliated," minister
Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf said in the message which he read on Iraqi television.
He said it was from Saddam, and dated Saturday.
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- "You must inflict more wounds on this enemy and
fight it and deprive it of the victories it has achieved... you must rattle
their joints and terrify them and speedily defeat them in and around Baghdad."
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- The message came on the day the U.S. military said its
tanks entered Baghdad for the first time since the American-led war to
topple Saddam's government began on March 20.
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- U.S. Major-General Victor Renuart told a news conference
in Qatar the tank thrust, after 17 days of war, was a "clear statement
of the ability of the coalition forces to move into Baghdad at times and
places of their choosing."
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- Iraqi officials denied U.S. troops entered Baghdad and
said they had expelled American forces from the city's airport.
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- Taped appearances by Saddam have become more frequent
in recent days as American forces focused their military campaign on Baghdad.
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- On Friday, television showed footage of Saddam touring
the streets of his bombed capital and greeting mobs of chanting admirers.
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- Also on Friday, Iraqi television showed him reading a
statement in which he mentioned the downing of a U.S. Apache helicopter
reported shot down by an Iraqi farmer on March 24.
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- That was the first indication Saddam had survived a U.S.
aerial attack that targeted him and his two sons on March 20.
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