# Saddam speech January 17, 2001

Translation of the pre-2003 Government of Iraq
In the name of Allah, the Merciful, the Compassionate
Great people,
Exalted men of our valiant armed forces,
Glorious men and women who have volunteered for Palestine and its crown, Al-Quds, to be free and liberated from the filth of Zionism,
Arabs,
People, wherever you are, you whose hearts are filled with faith, and who have made justice and fairness the path towards what pleases Allah,
Peace be with you and Allah’s Mercy and Blessings!
On a day like this day in the year 1991, a marvel happened on both sides of an encounter. It was the first encounter of its kind in the history of mankind until Allah decrees a similar one, in a similar situation, on two sides, each on the basis of his description and what he deserves.
At that time, on a day like this day ten years ago, Evil and all those who made Satan their protector lined up in one place, facing those who represented the will to defend right against falsehood and who had Allah as their Protector. They chose the sublime meanings and jihad, with hearts humble in prayer to Allah, glorified be His name, as their path towards His good pleasure, to win His forgiveness, pardon and satisfaction through faithful obedience.
Do you know, brothers, who deserved the latter description? I do not think that you do not know him who identified his name through the quality of his action on the path of jihad and virtue and the path of every human meaning which is sought by all those who seek it to achieve even a part of it.
On this side of the encounter were the people of civilizations, the cradle of prophethood, the torch of Allah’s messages and the anvil on which all hammers broke. Thus, through the power of their endurance and the power of their fortitude to reject injustice and oppression they became the cause for many a government to tumble down, and for the sun to turn away from those who are so much disposed to evil that they have become the representative type of Satan in their actions and in their lack of character.
On this side of sublime meanings and the true free stand were your people, you Arabs. It is your valiant army, you faithful freedom fighters. It is Iraq, you good people in humanity at large. It is the son of the immortal twin rivers, the bearer of the greatest mark in honour, character, principles, faith, stand, sword and banner. It is he whom you have known for the last ten years defending the principles of faith and humanity and defending the principles of his glorious Arab nation.
Some of you may have forgotten, and I do not think that many of you have forgotten who were on the other side of the encounter. They were the debased, the enemies of Allah, and those who had Satan as their protector for he had their character. They were those who missed no chance to confirm their character with what stamped it with the stamp of disgrace and shame whose marks will never disappear till Doomsday. So, those with the highest attributes, the attributes of dignity, honour and heroic stand, and with them the people of great Iraq had their chance to be at the zenith while the debased and the treacherous had theirs at the nadir.
Don’t you know who the debased and evil are?
Shall I reiterate in their hearing and yours who they are? Or would you say that you know them by their ugly and debased faces? Those ugly faces lined up dishonourably against and in front of faces beaming in beauty and brightness while looking towards their Lord with the marks of the People of Paradise, the faces of the pious martyrs and the faces of the living who have never changed their determination.
To refresh your memory, I will count on the side of the base act and the disgraceful stand those who represented the U.S, those who represented Britain, France, Germany, Spain, Holland, Argentina, Belgium and Australia… Shall I continue counting or do you still remember the number: thirty-three states, twenty-eight armies, taking the first place in the aggression upon Iraq, and more than forty states taking charge of supporting the direct aggression in addition to world Zionism and its freak and accursed entity?
As for the Arabs.. O you Arabs, you who are our pride, our honour, our wound, our wound, alas! Shall I count? How can I give names and count? How can I say and open the wounds? I will say but not count. I will say that the Arab nation is our nation. We belong to it and it belongs to us. It is our pride and our strength. It is our depth and Iraq is its depth. In its name was our call of chivalry, and in the name of its great ideals, our great ideals and its principles, we assaulted falsehood and knocked out its brain and caused it to perish. It is the nation of prophets, of martyrs and of holy men, it is our nation. Other than this I will not say. Let every coward or censurer hear me. It is my nation. No individual, even though he may say he belongs to it, can ever do evil to it or to its character. Will a rivulet with stale or stagnant water change the properties of the thundering sea?
No! The properties of our thundering sea will never change. And those who represent it in the sublime and principled stands are the true representatives of its properties. Everything else is accidental and short-lived.
Long live every stout-hearted and every faithful and generous individual in the Arab nation who is ever enraged at falsehood, discontented with it.
But did you know what happened in that continuous encounter then, and in this one which is going on even now? Did you know what the injustice and the embargo did to the people of Iraq? shall we engage and burden you with the details of what happened and what was said, or is it enough that we describe part of what should be described?
On the side of Evil, they showed on television part of what they did, boasting of the atrocities they committed.
Do you know, brothers, what they did? Have you seen (the doing) of a reckless, spoiled and light-headed child who takes after his father who was one of the kings of old times, but the like of him may exist even now too? Consider what this heedless child can do when he feels jealous of a rich museum and finds that he has the means to destroy it. None but this description fits those who waged and are still waging aggression and inflicting destruction upon the museum of faith, virtue, civilization, noble stand, the museum of the brave men and glorious women, and the great tree of life in the Iraq of the Arabs and the Muslims and the Iraq of faith. But what they destroyed, brothers, excepting human lives and blood, was but a copy of the original. The museum of civilization has remained radiating its meaning and keeping its original patterns safe, for they lie latent in the deep faith and in the true viability inside the souls and inside the giant tree of life, whose roots go deep down in human history, to the nation and to people everywhere generations after generations.
Isn’t this the proper comparison on the side of evil with those who believe that they are destroying man while they merely destroy what is material in his surroundings?
The missiles and bombs of aggression hit everything material and suitable as target for their weapons. Much dear blood of the dear ones was shed. But they have become the flagstaff of Allah-is-the-Greatest Banner. They have become the candles that dispel darkness before the march of great Iraq, generations after generations, and whenever darkness tries to veil the luminous light before the great march of the Iraqis who have sworn by Allah, by the blood of the martyrs and by every great name to make their crossing unquestionable.
Thus, Iraq has remained, the people have remained, the army has remained.
Long live the people!
Long live the Army!
Long live the Comrades!
Now then, one may ask: who was lining on the side of Iraq? shall I describe and tell you, and this is my belief, how Allah, the Omnipotent, was watching over Iraq with His attention? And how He turned their fire cool and a means of safety for the Iraqis? And how the conscienceof the Arab nation with its splendid history, its great faithful ideals, its meanings and its sublime symbols stood by the side of Iraq? And how Iraq was fighting and moving freely in the battlefield?
Have you seen a mountain in a state of furious rage and eruption?
Have you seen the waves of a huge, roaring and thundering ocean in a state of a great flow?
Have you seen the Tigris and how it floods in April every year?
Have you seen how the believers love Allah? And how people love people when they love deeply and with sublimity?
Have you seen how a lion in its den defends its cubs when in danger?
He who has seen and known this knows how Iraq was and how it is now. Iraq faced hate with love, weakness with strength, despair with hope, cowardice with courage, dishonour and treachery with honour and loyalty and truth of the honourable stand. The Iraqis loved their people, their civilization and their glorious history. They loved their nation and its great principles a love surpassed by none before. And because they were born free, they loved the right of every nation in humanity to be free, unyielding to the might of tyranny and exploitation of greed. That is how they came to be what they are, and to be what you know them for.
From these significant examples and meanings you can understand how an Iraqi loved his nation and loved Iraq, how he forbore, fought and held his ground, how he built towering buildings, how and why he plants trees and flowers even while the blazing flames of fire were and still are scorching his face in the continuous aggression of the evildoers and the injustice of their followers, how and why he sows the seeds of life and smiles to them and how and why he builds and elevates the building after removing the debris of destruction.
Iraq has triumphed over the enemies of the nation and over its enemies. It will triumph in all the remaining rounds with the help of Allah because it has achieved its triumph inside its soul, its conscience, its heart and its mind.
As for you, striving and struggling Arabs, this is known, too, by anyone of you who envisages, remembers and never forgets the maturity of the bills of the great principles of faith as a debt becoming due and as an assignment entrusted to him by Allah and by anyone of you who remembers that his ancestors were the pioneers of faith and the principles of human civilization and the lofty banners to the whole mankind. Anyone who can recall the image of how the Companions of the Messenger of Allah used to fight, preceded by the sword and banner bearers: Al-Hamza, Abu Bakr As-Siddiq, Abu Al-Hassanain Ali, with his sword, Dhul-Fiqar, Omar Al-Farouq and Khalid bin Al-Waleed, and how they used to hear the voice, the call and the prayer of the Prophet (Allah’s blessings and peace be upon him) for their victory-- anyone who can recall this, knows how the Iraqis fought led by each brave hero who has been true to his Covenant with Allah. He also knows how he should strive, struggle and fight too in defence of his identity, the principles of his nation and the meanings of the True Religion. Thus, he fortifies patriotism and the homeland, uplifts, with right, the position of the nation, the people, the nationalism and faith. He defeats evil and weakness, and strikes down degradation and falsehood and every foreigner encroaching on the right of the Arabs, on the meanings of their faith and on their right to sovereignty, security, life and the protection of the principles of honour and dignity.
Moreover, and after the Immortal Mother of All Battles, and after the children, youth and the aged of Palestine, men and women, have faced the weapons of the U.S and Zionism with stones, is there any Arab who may ask: How? After this and for a thousand or thousands of years to come, can fear find its way to the heart of any Arab in a position of responsibility unless he is a fear-ridden coward or hopelessly unpatriotic and lacking the virtue of faith in his soul? Can anyone who is faithful and zealous for his people and nation be excused when he does not rise against the injustice of the foreigner and the injustice of the unjust, and does not force and help himself to get rid of the weakness inside his soul?
Long live our glorious Arab nation!
Long live Palestine, free and proud from the River to the Sea!
Long live Iraq!
Long live Iraq!
Long live the people!
Long live the army!
Long live the comrades!
Allah is the Greatest!
Allah is the Greatest!
Allah is the Greatest! And let the debased be despised!
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This work may still be copyrighted in other countries and areas.
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