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• Marine Scouts Wait for Second Push Into Iraq • Praise, Protests, Threats: Reaction Around the World • Satellites Give U.S. Missiles Dead-on Aim

— BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraq has asked the United Nations to condemn and halt the U.S. and British invasion and ask them to withdraw their forces outside its borders.

In a statement sent to the U.N. Security Council and read on Iraqi television on Saturday, Foreign Minister Naji Sabri described the invasion as a threat to international and regional peace.

"Since the Anglo-American colonial military aggression against Iraq is a threat to international and regional peace and security, we call on the United Nations to condemn this invasion and aggression, move to stop it immediately and unconditionally, and ask U.S. and British aggressors to withdraw their forces immediately outside the borders of the Republic of Iraq."

The Arabic-language statement added: "Security Council resolutions must be respected and implemented, starting with the lifting of the unjust sanctions against Iraq, disarming the Zionist entity (Israel) of weapons of mass destruction to create a region without weapons of mass destruction in the Middle East."

Sabri said the war on Iraq, which Washington says is to oust President Saddam Hussein and rid the country of weapons of mass destruction, was part of "criminal practices aimed at imposing U.S. hegemony on the world."

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