Two senior members of the Iraqi parliament on Tuesday dismissed as "full of lies" President Bush's speech in which he said Baghdad wanted to attack the United States with weapons of mass destruction. "Your speech Bush is full of lies and full of unreasonable argument," Abdul Aziz Kailani, the head of the religious affairs committee in the parliament, told Reuters.

"You (Bush) are just like a beast which wants to eat small countries and while you should help them you want to destroy them," Kailani said.

There has been no reaction yet to the speech from President Saddam Hussein or his government. Bush has said repeatedly that he wants "regime change" in Iraq and Saddam replaced.

Because of the hour of Bush's speech, the Iraqi media is expected to comment only on Wednesday. Babel, the newspaper of Saddam's eldest son Uday, did published an Arabic version.

Bush told Americans the threat of a deadly attack by Iraq on the United States was growing, but insisted military action was not imminent and pledged to build an international coalition against Saddam if he defied demands to disarm.

Bush's speech in Cincinnati on Monday was aimed at Americans who are uneasy at the prospect of war. Bush said the threat from Saddam's suspected arms of mass destruction grew more dangerous with time.

Kailani said: "I want to ask Mr. Bush a question: how far is the U.S.A. from Iraq? It is very far from here...(there is) a big ocean, large countries between us, so how come we pose a threat to America?."

Another Iraqi parliamentarian denied that Baghdad possessed any weapons of mass destruction, saying Washington was using that as an excuse to attack Iraq.

"We have no weapons of mass destruction and the whole world knows that but Bush wants to impose his hegemony on the world and subject Iraq to his rule," said Abdul Aziz Shwaish, head of the finance, trade and planning committee.

He dismissed Bush's remarks that Iraq had maintained high- level contacts for more than a decade with al Qaeda, the militant Islamic movement accused of staging the September 11 suicide hijacking attacks on America.

"We have no contact with al Qaeda and nobody would believe Bush's words on that," Shwaish said.

PHOTO CAPTION

Young Iraqi students walking in downtown Baghdad, wear T-shirts with pictures of President Saddam Hussein with the slogan: The Arabs will follow Saddam, on Monday, Oct. 7, 2002. President Bush is expected later Monday to address Americans on the threat posed by Iraq, and why a U.S.-led war on Saddam Hussein's regime may be necessary. (AP Photo/Jassim Mohammed)