LONDON, March 30: The toughest fighting in the US-led war against Iraq is yet to come, General Richard Myers, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, said on Sunday, promising the allies can cope with suicide attacks.

“I’m not going to make a prediction in terms of how long this conflict will last,” Myers said in an interview on BBC television.

“I’ve always said that the toughest part is yet to come... I would think the toughest fighting is ahead of us.”

He said the fighting would have to last long enough to disarm Iraq and remove the regime of President Saddam Hussein.

“You never know, regimes like this that have their power base in fear and intimidation tend to topple fairly quickly when it’s pretty apparent that they’re no longer going to be around,” Myers said.

“I can assure people that the end of this, the result, the conclusion, is never going to be in doubt. The Iraqi regime will be out of power.

“We ... just can’t predict when the regime will tip.”

A day after the first successful kamikaze attack on soldiers in the Iraq war, the top general said US-British forces could adapt to cope with suicide attacks.

“I think we can adjust our tactics and techniques and the procedures we use to overcome that threat,” Myers said, adding that suicide attacks were “not a technique that’s unknown”.

“Clearly the British are familiar with that, what they’ve been dealing with in the last couple of decades in various parts of the world. We’re familiar with that,” Myers said.

On Saturday a taxi driver set off a bomb at a roadblock in central Iraq, killing four US soldiers in the first successful suicide attack on troops in the 11-day US and British drive to topple the regime of President Saddam Hussein.

It threatened to complicate the already laborious advance of the US and British troops.

Myers called the attack “a reminder that there are some very desperate people out there and we have to be on our toes”.

In Baghdad, Iraqi Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan said Iraq could extend suicide bombings into “enemy” homes, suggesting such attacks were in preparation to strike inside the United States and Britain.

“We have recourse to all means of killing the enemy who is trying to occupy our land and we call on our people and the Arab world to pursue the enemy right into his own home,” Ramadan told reporters late Saturday.

Ramadan also warned more suicide strikes were on the way, and rejected US criticism that such tactics were outside the rules of war.

“This is only a beginning and you will hear good news in the coming days. We will use any means to stop the enemy and kill the enemy,” he said. “When it comes to self-defence there is nothing legitimate or illegitimate.

Myers said the fighting in Iraq would have to last long enough to disarm Iraq and remove Saddam’s regime.

“You never know, regimes like this that have their power base in fear and intimidation tend to topple fairly quickly when it’s pretty apparent that they’re no longer going to be around,” Myers said.

“I can assure people that the end of this, the result, the conclusion, is never going to be in doubt. The Iraqi regime will be out of power.

“We ... just can’t predict when the regime will tip,” Myers said.

He added that fighting by Iraqi troops and irregulars in the south was tenacious, audacious and ferocious.

He said the reason the Iraqi population had not rebelled against the regime as US and British troops have invaded was that these were people for whom the “very fabric of their existence is dominated by the fact that they’ve been exploited and tortured and brutalized by this regime, and they’re afraid to come forward right now.”—AFP