I think if he is planning on a war with bow and arrows, he is likely to lose.... Saddam: We're ready for war By Ben Leapman, Political Reporter, Evening Standard 6 January 2003 Saddam Hussein today warned the West that his country was ready for war, in a dramatic live TV address to the Iraqi people. In his toughest speech yet he said his army had the strength to stand firm, and dismissed President George Bush's threats as the "hiss of snakes and bark of dogs". He also accused the United Nations weapons inspectors now searching his country for evidence of illegal arms as acting as spies for the West. His defiant words appeared to dash hopes that he might be prepared for a last-minute climbdown over his weapons programme to avoid being ousted by force. In a taped TV speech to mark Iraq's Army Day, he said: "The enemy will be defeated disgracefully. It has misjudged and misbehaved after abandoning any means of honesty on which good people meet and cooperate. "We are in our country, and the one who is in his country is right and its enemy is wrong. When the enemy comes as an aggressor, the victory will go to the people of right when they are inside their homeland. "We are confident, depending on the Almighty, that you will be, with the beginning of every new day, better till you reach the best situation, in defiance of the disappointed enemy, the friends and helpers of Satan, night and darkness. Their arrows will go aimlessly while your arrows will hit them." His words were dismissed at once by Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, who predicted that despite his tough talking, Saddam would be forced to retreat. Mr Straw said: "We have heard this kind of stuff before. People need to remember with Saddam Hussein the degree to which he has impoverished his own nation and time and time again lied about his situation. "In September he and his acolytes were saying in no circumstances would he allow weapons inspectors back in again but in the end he had to." Mr Straw today sought to rally British opinion behind possible military action with a warning that rogue regimes such as Saddam's were "the most likely sources of arms for terrorist groups". Ministers will announce this week that thousands of troops are to be mobilised in preparation for war. Mr Straw told a meeting of British ambassadors in London that countries like Iraq, which flout international law by developing nuclear, chemical or biological weapons, pose the gravest threat to world peace.