Saddam Hussein's daughters -- Raghad and Rana -- have said in an interview to Arab satellite station al-Arabiya that they have not seen him since weeks before the Iraq war started.

Raghad and Rana have received sanctuary in Jordan with their nine children.

"He was a very good father, loving, has a big heart,"  Raghad Hussein said in the interview.

"He had so many feelings and he was very tender with all of us. Usually the daughter is close to her mother, but we would usually go to him. He was our friend," said Rana.

The sisters, however, refused to discuss their brothers, Uday and Qusay, who were killed in a shootout with US forces in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul on July 22.