03/01/2001

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraq Wednesday dismissed reports that President Saddam Hussein
had suffered a stroke over the weekend.

Some media outlets in England and Germany have run reports based on claims from the
exiled Iraqi opposition that Saddam is in intensive care after the stroke.

``These reports are so silly that they do not even deserve a reply,'' said Salam Khatab
al-Nassiri, director-general of the Information Department of the Ministry of Culture and
Information.

``All the world has seen how President Saddam Hussein stood for more than five hours
greeting units of our brave army at the Al-Aqsa Call Parade,'' Nassiri said in a statement.

``He also fired more than 140 shots one handed, something most young people are unable to
do -- this alone is enough as a reply to this absurd news,'' he added.

Saddam presided Sunday over what appeared to be the biggest military parade in Baghdad
since the 1991 Gulf War, greeting army units with shots from a rifle he held in one hand.

The four-hour parade displayed sophisticated surface-to-surface and anti-aircraft missiles,
artillery and over 1,000 modern, Russian-made tanks as well as infantry units.

Formations of jet fighters and helicopter gunships flew over central Baghdad's Grand
Festivities Square as forces representing all Iraqi military units, including the navy, infantry
and paramilitary Saddam commandos, marched past.

No figures were given for the number of troops or weaponry pieces taking part in the
so-called Al-Aqsa Call Parade, intended as a show of support for Palestinians in their
uprising against Israeli occupation.

Saddam has survived a decade of U.N. sanctions imposed for his invasion of Kuwait, but the
embargo has ruined Iraq's infrastructure and caused a plunge in living standards.
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The Kurdistan Observer
www.kurdistanobserver.com