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Iraqi media denounces

defectors as traitors

BAGHDAD: Iraq's official press broke its silence on Saturday with a vitriolic attack on President Saddam Hussein's son-in-law who fled to Jordan earlier this week.

State-newspapers had banner headlines denouncing Lieutenant-General Hussein Kamel Hassan as a traitor and carried in full an address by Saddam on Friday in which he compared his "treason" to that of Judas.

Hussein Kamel, who ran both Iraq's civil and military industries and helped in the formation of Baghdad's elite force of Republican Guards, fled to Jordan on Tuesday along with his brother, Lieutenant-Colonel Saddam Kamel Hassan, and their two wives, both daughters of Saddam.

Jordan granted them and their entourage asylum and snubbed an attempt by Saddam's eldest son Uday to lure them home.

Iraqi officials and state media singled out Hussein Kamel among the defectors for their ire.

"The coward Hussein Kamel...has descended to the bottom of treachery," declared the official al-Qadissiya newspaper.

The government paper al-Jumhouriya said it was good that a "traitor" like Hussein Kamel had fled the country because his presence in Iraq would have "formed a dangerous mine which could have gone off at inappropriate time."

It said it was "jealousy" of power and position which prompted him to flee the country.

Both Saddam and Deputy Prime Minister Tareq Aziz poured scorn on his defection on Friday, saying it would not undermine the government in Baghdad.

Shebab television, owned by Uday, ran interviews with viewers who vented their wrath on Hussein Kamel. Many said he deserved to die.

SAUDI COMMENT

DUBAI: A Saudi Arabian newspaper said on Saturday that President Saddam Hussein's regime was on the verge of collapse following the defection of senior Iraqi aides to Jordan and urged the Iraqi people to overthrow their government.

"The Iraqi regime which has depended on a one-man show is now living the last agonising moments of death," the daily al-Madina newspaper, quoted by the Saudi press agency, said in an editorial.

Al-Madina said the defection of the aides "reveals wide and serious gaps in the police state created by the tyrant."

It added that "the key to get out of the fix of the one-man show lies with the Iraqi people and (Iraqi) opposition.

"They alone bear the the burden of further shaking the regime at home in order to bring it down for the sake of Iraq and its people."-Reuter