Iraqi President Saddam Hussein toured the streets of his bombed capital in footage shown on Iraqi television Friday shortly after he read a statement calling on citizens to "strike the enemy with force." As thousands of U.S.-led ground forces moved toward the Iraqi capital after a 16-day aerial assault, television footage showed a smiling Saddam greeted mobs of chanting admirers walking amid bomb-damaged buildings with smoke seen from oil fires burning in the distance.

Some kissed him on his cheeks and hands and he held up a small child.

"How are you?" Saddam was heard asking excited and clearly surprised citizens.

"May God protect you, president," one Iraqi said.

Another man said: "We'll defend you with our blood and souls, Saddam."

It could not be immediately confirmed whether the footage released by Iraqi television was shot Friday.

Saddam, who made similar public tours of parts of Baghdad during the 1991 Gulf War, is believed to have last been seen in public as long as two years ago. His whereabouts have been the subject of intense speculation since U.S.-led forces bombed Baghdad on March 20, targeting the Iraqi leader and his two sons.

But earlier Friday in a taped address read on Iraqi television, Saddam provided the first real clue that he had in fact survived that attack when he mentioned the downing of an Apache helicopter by an Iraqi farmer March 24.

"The enemy is overtaking our valiant defenses around Baghdad just like it did around other cities and they (enemy) are avoiding clashes," Saddam said in his address.

"They are deploying here and there, just like we expected, and these deployments are normally thin and we can confront them with the weapons available, and you recall the Iraqi peasant that downed an Apache with his rifle."

GOVERNMENT INTACT

The United States and Britain launched their invasion of Iraq to topple the government and rid it of weapons of mass destruction, which Baghdad denies having.

Iraqi Foreign Minister Naji Sabri told the BBC that despite nightly bombing of Baghdad, Saddam and his government are intact.

"The president is well, the leadership are well ... and they are functioning as normal," he told BBC.

In a statement read by Saddam on Iraqi television he called on the people of Baghdad to "strike the enemy with force" and predicted victory over the invading U.S. and British troops.

"Hit them with force, resist them, oh people of Baghdad whenever they advance upon your city and remain true to your principles, your faith and your honor," said Saddam, dressed in a green military uniform.

After the speech was aired, the White House said it would consider military action in Iraq a success even if U.S. forces failed to find Saddam.

PHOTO CAPTION

This image taken off Iraqi television satellite channel shows Iraqi President Saddam Hussein holding a child up as he tours the streets of Baghdad's al-Mansour residential neighborhood, in the first footage of the Iraqi leader in public aired since the start of the war. (AFP-Iraqi TV)