Update: U.S. says the speech may be an old one.

Monday, Mar 24, 2003; 3:21 AM

BAGHDAD, March 24 (Reuters) - Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, dressed in a military uniform, appeared on state television on Monday and hailed the Iraqi military on the fifth day of a U.S.-led invasion to overthrow him.

"We made a lot of sacrifices to avert war," Saddam said, praising the "valiant" contribution of the Iraqi military in resisting a U.S. and British war against Iraq that began on Thursday.

He said the invasion forces were "trapped" by heroic Iraqi resistance.

Reuters correspondents in Baghdad and elsewhere in the Middle East said they were confident that the man appearing on live television was Hussein. The Iraqi leader has a handful of lookalikes who sometimes stand in for him.

Speculation has abounded about Hussein's fate since the war started with air strikes on Baghdad intended to kill him. Some reports said he was dead, others that he was so badly wounded he had to receive a blood transfusion.

Within three hours of the first U.S.-led attack on Baghdad on Thursday, a tired-looking Hussein appeared on television, in a military uniform, urging his people to fight. But the CIA says it could have been pre-recorded -- even though he referred in the address to the start of the raid at dawn.