Ivanov told the mass-circulation newspaper that the Russian military was closely following the war in Iraq, and said that the Iraqis were still capable of mounting strong offensives.

The United States launched military strikes on Iraq on March 20. 　　

If US troops "launch carpet bombings, Iraq won't hold out for long, but they are yet to dare doing that because the political damage would be huge," the minister said. "But if they try to fight with minimal losses, accurately as they are doing it now, avoiding big clashes, the outcome is far from certain. Iraq has quite a serious army, and it hasn't yet started to fight."

Ivanov said that the Russian military had seen the importance to strengthen itself from the on-going war in Iraq.

He said the military had drawn a military-political conclusion from the war that "Russia has only two reliable allies -- the army and the navy."

"While the international security system is coming apart at the seams, they must provide a reliable defense," he added.

Amid the growing strain in US-Russian relations over Iraq, the US administration last week accused Russia of shipping military equipment to Iraq. Moscow has dismissed the allegations, and warned Washington against waging an "information war."

In other recent signs of friction, Moscow has protested against the flights of the US U-2 spy planes over Russia-Georgia border.

Ivanov said that Moscow was dissatisfied with the US claim that the flights were necessary to monitor terrorist groups in Georgia, because the planes were flying too high to spot the terrorists.

"We can't accept the explanation of combating terrorism and we have asked the American side to explain to us what was the purpose of such flights," he added.

(Xinhua News Agency April 1, 2003)