'Of course they will target us - but we are prepared'

A final show of defiance took place yesterday in Tikrit, a town doomed in the war to come. Saddam Hussein's birthplace and powerbase will be the target of the most withering of blitzkriegs, a symbolic target the Americans have threatened to raze.

Tikrit was the focal point for demonstrations against the United States and Britain organised by the government throughout Iraq yesterday. Around 10,000 marched, chanting the Iraqi leader's name and vowing loyalty to the end. That end, as many of them knew, may now be just days away.

The most powerful men in the ruling élite, the highest ranking in the military and civil hierarchy, are all Tikritis. The Special Security Organisation, in charge of President Saddam's personal protection, is based here, as well as key armouries and communications centres. And it is here that he is expected to make his last stand.

The 250,000 people of the town and its hinterland are only too aware of what is to come. In the 1991 Gulf War, a dozen buildings were destroyed and four people killed, and during Operation Desert Fox in 1998, 28 died and 34 were injured.

This time Washington has made little secret of the fact that the attack will be devastating. The rest of the country, and Baghdad, will be spared as much as possible, say Pentagon officials, but there are no such assurances for Tikrit.

"It is quite easy how we run Iraq, we run it just the way we used to run Tikrit," one of President Saddam's inner circle once explained. And for decades the city and its hinterland, 120 miles north of Baghdad, has enjoyed a privileged and special position.

When I met him six months ago, Mohammed Yasin Mahmood, the deputy governor, warned that America would try to destroy Tikrit for psychological reasons as it destroyed Nagasaki for its association with the Japanese imperial family. Does he still think so? "I am more sure than ever," he responded. "They want to obliterate anything in our history which may be threatening to them. They want to create Iraq in their own image."

Twirling a cardboard portrait of Saddam, Jawad Majid abu-Rashid, acknowledges both the bounty of the past and the threat the future holds. "The president has been very kind, and we have done well. Of course the Americans will target us because of who we are, but that is the sacrifice we must prepare ourselves for," he said. "We have no choice, as Tikritis we have to face our fate."

Tikrit is also the birthplace of the great Saladin, the victorious Seljuk Turk commander against the Crusaders, whose mantle as a leader against the West President Saddam has sought.

But while there are only two statues of Saladin, pictures of Saddam hang from every lamp post. One in three public building bears his name. The most lavish of the eight presidential palaces is here, and the newest mosque, finished six months ago, in blue and cream and shaped like a blancmange, was built in honour of his father, Hussein al-Majid Abdul Ghofar.

Anwar Omar al-Nasr, comes from the same albu-Nasr tribe as President Saddam. He wiped his grizzled face with the chequed dish-dash on his head with one hand, while waving a Kalashnikov with the other.

"We are Muslims, and we have to fight for Islam, our home and our honour," he growled. "The president is one of us, he is our family. Of course we shall fight for him, and if necessary, die for him."

Mr al-Nasr was in the army for 26 years and declared that he certainly knew how to fight. Everyone in the clan had weapons, he said, shaking the semi-automatic rifle again. The magazine, however, was empty.

"This time it is only for show," he insisted. "Next time it will be for real."