Speaking at a press conference, Aziz said all members of the Iraqi leadership are "in good shape" in spite of the US-led decapitation attack designed to kill Saddam and his key aids.

"All members of the Iraqi leadership, with the exception of one martyr who died in a battle at Najaf, are alive and in good shape, and each and every one is working efficiently," he said.

He said the United States and Britain underestimated the Iraqi people's support for Saddam.

"Don't fool yourselves," he said, referring to the expectations by the US and British leaders that Iraqi civilians could receive the coalition forces with the music and flowers.

"We do not have candies to offer. We are just offering them bullets," he added

He dismissed the reports that the US-led forces have captured Nasiriya, 375 km southeast of Baghdad.

Aziz also said the Republican Guard did not participate the fighting in the southern port of Umm Qasr, noting that it was regular Iraqi army that mounted the initial counter-attack.

Referring to the report that the US and British troops will soon get into Baghdad, the deputy prime minister said the US-led forces would receive the same kind of defense they had encountered in southern Iraq.

"They will be welcomed (in Baghdad) in the same way they were welcomed in Umm Qasr, Faw and Nasiriya and by the Iraqi peasants who brought down the Apache (helicopter)," he said.

(Xinhua News Agency March 25, 2003)