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Saturday February 23, 5:06 AM
Saddam tells US: overthrow my regime but don't strike Iraq
Iraqi President Saddam Hussein said he would rather be overthrown by the United States than see his country be the target of destructive air strikes, the official INA news agency reported.
"We give our support ... to the option of overthrowing the regime -- a civilized slogan -- which is better than attacking, striking the population, harming it and destroying its resources," he said during a meeting with military officials marking the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha.
US President George W. Bush has branded Iraq part of an "axis of evil" and threatened to take unspecified action against Baghdad unless it lets UN arms inspectors back into the country to check it no longer has weapons of mass destruction.
The inspectors pulled out of Iraq on the eve of a December 1998 US-British bombing blitz and have not been allowed to return since.
Iraq maintains it no longer has mass destruction weapons or the capability of developing them.
The Washington Times said Friday, quoting White House officials, that Bush wants Saddam out of office before his own term is up in January 2005.
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