Saddam speech August 8, 1999

by Saddam Hussein

In the Name of God,

Most Compassionate, Most Merciful

Great People,

The Valiant of Our Brave Armed Forces,

Sons of our Glorious Arab Nation,

Friends…

As Man is part of his family and social environment in thinking, natural disposition and habits, any phase of people's development likewise constitutes part of their history temperament and customs. Albeit nations and peoples have some sort of common traits, which can be summed up and accessed, each of them has other different characteristics. They take their colours, tokens, level and profundity of influence upon oneself or upon others in the light of the disparity and kind of traits of each people and each nation, their different roles and the kind and level of development with respect to the starting-point of humanity, or the description within the context of its phase. The broader the account and distance between one nation and another is, the more strongly varied and distant are the points of separation.

Leaders and the kind of the part and task or tasks they perform play a decisive role in crystallizing the special traits, level, direction, type of action and influence. On the premise of this account, the level of humaneness or hostility of peoples and nations as well as the level of acceptability of the merits and demerits are affected by the background of these traits and the kind and rank of their historical models in the light of the description of the special trait in both field and occasion… Hence we can recourse to the interpretations of historical phenomena and many periods or even the main trends in the history of peoples and nations, among which are our people and our nation. Therefore, we go back to the past, which is relevant in one way or another to the present speech, and ask, for instance:

Why was Baghdad destroyed in 1258 A.D? Why was Babylon destroyed in 539 B.C? Yet man's spirit in both could not be totally destroyed, nor was the hope for revival anew given up… Why had Baghdad's slumber lasted for eight centuries? Why has Baghdad woken once more, yet has not stooped, twisted, ceased or bargained?

Should we answer in detail, relying upon the special traits of our people and the one who had incurred harm to it, we would find a convincing reply beside circumstantial factors. We would see that these traits explain to us the essence of the positive points being fairly recorded for our people and for whoever has caused harm to it in the past or still doing so, whenever the traits which are in common with the past generation yet associated with its history and people are summoned, or on the occasion of the Great Victory Day in which we are delivering our speech, albeit the difference in time between past and present.

Babylon, Baghdad, Assur, Nineveh, Hatra and Ur were not neutral, in a middle distance between the foot of the mountain and the summit. Thus, when they behold the summit, firmly convinced of the truthfulness and honesty, in addition to other usual requisites, of the leaders, they run fast to it, and occupy it, so they become the uppermost lighthouse in the surrounding, its radiance is visible at long distances, so that many people would be lit and guided, lest they should stray. Driven by jealousy, envy, feeling of disability and demerits into frantic commotion triggered by the instinct for aggression and destruction, others have sought to sit on ruins, misconceiving them as an uppermost summit. Similarly, selfishness dictates one possibility of taking one general, common direction to interests, which are incompatible with those of another summit and of another description, and by corollary a clash would occur. Conversely, climbing up the summit by means of endeavour and sublime morals is recurrent in the history of Iraq and the Arab Nation, indeed, it is quite appropriate for the Nation and Iraq. When both reach the summit, they often stay there for such a time as to be seen or heard by all, near and far. Due to their own traits, they do not hastily roll down the face of the summit, unlike other peoples and nations. Likewise, owing to the profundity and level of the capability and wisdom of their leaders' minds and consciences beside a true love of the significance and course of construction, the removal of such leaders from the summit cannot be brought about except by a collision which would unexpectedly take them by surprise at any period in which they become inadvertent or preoccupied with unnecessary matters or fall into miscalculation. Hence, we can expound the reason when Baghdad's eyes are closed, all Arabs' eyes are closed too, and why when it wakes up once more, the sword would be associated with the pen, both being based on wisdom, yet each forming a flank founded on the great morals of civilization and the eternal heritage of our Nation where giant falcons fly to protect the sky and land of Iraq so that Baghdad should proceed with its course to the summit armed with the principles of construction and advancement, and holding the sword to defend the sublime morals. In all this Baghdad expresses the genius of the Nation and People under the protection of the message of the faithful nationalism and immortal humanity. Thence Baghdad has emitted radiance that conveys the morals and illuminates the way with beams reaching all parts of the world under the care and protection of the Most Compassionate. The sword has become a flagpole for the pen, the latter a guide to the morals of construction and faith, a solid base for the former and a streaming banner to enlighten many dark spots of humanity with its great concepts. No wonder then some have dogfought against Baghdad with hatred and envy and have employed forces, some of which are backward for destruction while others have used their accumulation of malice and narrow, greedy interests to portray to the backward of their kind that their destructive approach is right. And as the Mongols and Tatars had burned books of science and knowledge, murdered the scientists in Baghdad and wasted the Nation's opportunity for a long time, some of the backward too pushed by their destructive force and backsided by their evil intents have thought that they are capable of killing men of knowledge and tokens of pen, wisdom, sword and banner in Baghdad, which is rising higher and for the better. Hopeless indeed will be their presumptions, and surely evil are the things they have been doing.

Brothers,

We do not want in what we have said or in what we shall explicate on this particular occasion or on another and on these topics or others to call to memory the mere factors of separation, nor do we like to scrape the scab of the wound which is still wide open; rather we have endeavoured and are still endeavouring to put the facts in their correct, social, historical and faith content and within their scientific context. We would assist others to be guided for what is good as part of our patriotic and national responsibility based on faith, indeed our responsibility and humane relationship whether with Iran or with other nations, out of our constant desire and determination for assistance and initiation so as to build bridges of love and peace, whenever possible or whenever there is a balanced and appropriate opportunity. Thus we state too:

When the ruler discovers in himself or in his people a potential energy that can be utilized but he does not possess the faculty of conceiving the better among which the qualifications for construction and rendering the good, he often exploits it in a manner contrary to the good, love, fairness or construction. A destructive potentiality is consequently produced concerning relations with other nations and peoples, specially the neighbouring ones. Therefore, being busy with construction, values and sublime principles together with a balanced view of the social, economic and cultural life is a strong indication of the ruler's or leader's utilization of the potential energy in himself and his intellect, and in the spirit and intellect of his people and nation, and in a civilized and humane direction based on his love for the good instead of evil, construction insof destruction and aggression. Unfortunately Iranian rulers, particularly the predecessors, and the like up to now, have not occupied themselves with construction nor have they cultivated love and good. Hence, their slogans at the end of Shah's era have been arrogant, aggressive, expansionist albeit they assume the shape of Islamic promulgation. By corollary, the aggression took place and the war broke out.

All this in addition to the authentic records of history may also expound how and why the Elamite Persian King Schuturk-Nachonettihad stolen the renowned Code of the Iraqi King, Hammurabi, and how he attempted to erase Hammurabi's name beneath these laws out of envy and hatred of that great Iraqi king and in pursuit of a remedy for the illness of mind and soul which that Elamite had inherited from his fathers. So, having carried out a destructive operation in Iraq, that Persian King had stolen an aspect of Iraq's cultural and legal history and civilization instead of creating a flourishing civilization, for his own traits had incapacitated him for ascent. Instead he sank low in compatibility with his characteristics and tendencies. Likewise, why and how had the Persian King, Korsch, destroyed Babylon, nearly six centuries later, that is considered the first and most radiant and most influential human civilization then, assisted by the leprosy that had infected the body of Babylon at that time, i.e., the Jews who had been brought captives to it by King Nebuchadnezzar?

Driven by his destructive instinct, envy and hatred, King Korsch had demolished Babylon, not as an expression of insightful capability, but as a blind, foolish disability, thinking by so doing he had treated his complexity externalized by weakness or lack of awareness or by incapability for ascending the right, humanitarian path. He had transferred his hereditary illness to others who would bear it up to the time, as God permit, the hearts, consciences and breasts of those surprised by darkness will be enlightened. By the will of God, glory be to Him, Baghdad shall remain, just as it has always been, inaccessible to the enemies and guarded by pride and by heedful might, true to humane principles. Its gates shall never be open except to the peoples seeking good relations and friendship and to the good faithful, God willing.

Accordingly, peoples with a deeply rooted role in civilization are not the same as those with an insignificant one. By the same token, peoples in whose life, history and tasks the humane aspect plays a great and decisive role in adopting a call or calls for the good and conveying a message or messages in compatibility with the level and kind of the relevant models in the course for the betterment of humanity and sublime morals are not the same as those peoples whose main history is confined to a narrow, limited, selfish and local role. The difference which has also a profound, influential significance in this or that people is between whether the overwhelming probability of playing the role is attributed to material factors and considerations, life items within their own phase or other factors and attributes and whether their stimulating or reminding models of the role are only models for destruction, causing injury to other peoples and nations, transgressing the right deeply into falsehood vis-à-vis other models that summon the good, love, altruism, the great humanistic role and the endeavour for right and justice.

One of the variables influencing the kind and orientation of rulers and peoples in general is: Does what is within their countries suffice them, desist them and distract them from enmity and aggression? Or are they in want of it, especially when they are not rightly guided to the way of increasing potentialities and life items instead of another way, factors and right humane reasons for the significance of man's creation by God? Thus we have found the neighbouring barren hills had been rolled down to fertile, sedimentary plains by some who were evil, armed and aggressive and also by others who sought easy living after a hardship. Manifestly, the radiance of the Rafidain plain has formed a column of immense radiant light illuminating the surrounding as well as the remote distances whenever its strength has escalated to its due level.

As every man has energy, feelings and thinking, nations too have their energy, feelings and thinking. The results, their kind and level depend on the direction in which the energy, feelings and thinking are oriented. Here, leaders play their role and shoulder their decisive responsibility in determining results in the light of selecting objectives and manner. If they release potentialities and their traits in the direction of destruction and evil, they will reap what is relevant to both, for this is the very road that descends low though it might appear easier or the only one. The destruction and evil instinct would be employed when the mind fails to grasp its wide field, the justifications of the great principles and the interdictions of the sublime morals code. Indeed, the failure of a lofty imagination causes energy to slope downward to where it collides with the lowland. One of the most perilous matters is that those of this kind of fancy and its course misconstrue that they score triumph even when the have been wrecked by the acceleration of their lowermost decline of energy; they are unable to imagine the ascending paths and thus are drifted towards the slope, as we have just mentioned. But if they direct their energy towards the good and its accesses, they will reap what is relevant to both too.

On the premise of these morals and the level of the summoned models relevant to the two ranks or opposing ranks, the different throngs can take one direction, or else contradict and collide with each other. On account of the principles and morals we stated in our last 17 July speech, we can expound one aspect of the conflict that broke out in the glorious Qadissiya battle, after a series of offensives in which the Iranian officials concerned had released evil and depleted the potential energy of emotions which the revolution against Shah of Iran had liberated and released from its bulging long-necked bottle.

Iranian peoples had not then waged a war for a long time and had faced all sorts of humiliation, coercion and hunger under that regime. So they sought another way for self-assurance. The new Iranian officials concerned have triggered or released that energy into the wrong, destructive direction, now being deprived of its humane and spiritual principles in the simplest terms of description, albeit it had merely assumed a formal, flimsy and verbal cover from the spiritual standpoint, as we have said. It had made its spirit and morals targets at which destructive weapons and energy are aimed. Great Iraq, however, has repelled it with a breast full of faith and with a balanced prospect of life, endeavour and responsibility. Such were the happenings: victory has thus been ascertained within and without the soul of Iraqis at the starting point and likewise in the ultimate result and as a natural outcome of this kind of conflict.

For more confirmations of that account of the two parties in conflict each according to its worth, we cite certain examples from a huge amount and enormous heap. Iraq, for instance, released all Iranian prisoners of war (POWs) a short time after ceasefire, except one POW who was later set free just as we stated in our speech on the same occasion last year. We have released them, guided by the principles which we believe in and relying on the great profundity of the morals of the True Islamic Religion and the principles of the glorious July Revolution. All the time in the cages of captivity, Iranian POWs had been in contact with International Red Cross; they have enjoyed all the POW's rights in accordance with their proper context. Conversely, Iran, up to now, has retained thousands of Iraqi POWs, and has even refused to register some of them at the Red Cross. Our heroes of POWs have received and are still receiving various kinds of torture and pressure, many a time thehave been murdered inside the captivity cages, for no reason except they respect their humaneness, patriotism and the principles of their nation. They do not betray or do evil to their country or people; they do not speak ill of their symbols and principles. Therefore, Iran's conduct is unprecedented. Thus we have only to search for a certain aspect of history so as to be rightly guided to its causes and accurate description and to say that any account of this conduct lies squarely within a description contrary to that of the people of Iraq, its system, principles, leaderships and their morals. Because each token of the two countries, Iraq and Iran, has now had an explicit description, action, policy and course after such a long period of governance and conflict, any one, near or far including the Iranian peoples can be assigned a special description for each as well as the pros and cons of each.

The second example is that Iraq had deposited civil and war planes in Iran, some of them prior to the encounter with the thirty states in Umm al-Ma'arik (The Mother of All Battles), others during the battle, for we misconceived that the Iranians concerned might share a common property with humanity and wend the way of the good on the account that Iran is no longer an enemy of Iraq. God had made us triumphant over the evil rank on August 8, 1988. Fighting had then ceased through the two parties' agreement. Based on what was suggested by our memory of the Iranian officials' slogans in the past era and present, among which the slogan we recalled concerning USA which they called then the Great Satan, we thought, wrongly, that there was some possibility of a minimal adherence to those slogans, because we did not imagine that whosoever, especially those who claim that Islam is their religion, could express differently from what they concealed and could abandon overnight their slogans and even counteract them, particularly the battle was between Iraq under the protection of the Most Compassionate on one hand, and what they have labelled then "the Great Satan", i.e., USA, and its ally Zionism and their allies or those siding with them on the other.

These two examples, brothers, are of many others which occupy volumes on the party opposite to Iraq. They also unveil some of the morals of the two direct parties of the conflict whose consequences cannot be expounded except by recoursing to what we have stated and what we are saying in our speech today and to the profundity of July speech which we delivered last month on the occasion of the glorious Revolution Day in addition to the facts that have emerged from two neighbouring marches and two experiments separated only by geographical boundaries. Indeed, the Iranian officials pushed their peoples and kindled in them all elements of repression and energy which had not been rightly employed with the Arabs in general. So they collided with the Nation's great insurmountable dam and well-fortified citadel on the eastern front, Great Iraq.

Despite all reiterative calls, before and after the encounter, for deliberation and detachment from the motives and spots of evil and despite all appeals for peace released by Iraq from the highest and various levels, the slogans, drums and guns of aggression and war had persisted beside the slogans of hopeless, greedy ambitions which were all defeated. The slogans of invasion and its premeditated and preplanned intents were also frustrated. Right had triumphed over falsehood; it was a victory for the sublime morals of humanity at large, including those Iranian peoples that believe in an anti-aggression course of policy.

Thus, brothers, the sword and pen… or the arm and wisdom of mind are two parallel counterparts in a balanced action in the history of Iraq and the Nation and their immortal heritage. They have also been in equilibrium in this conflict. So we did not gloat at mishaps or act perfidiously when fighting came to a halt, because our wisdom dictates that the sword should not be a substitute for the pen, nor should the arm replace argument, conviction and interaction. It does not live on land without a sky nor does it manipulate weakness by clutching verbally to heavenly morals, which have no faith or solid ground. It does not hesitate to use the sword when it turns to be an inevitable way to validate an argument and when the mind fails to convince the one who is guilty of falsehood not to commit an offense of aggression by falsifying his stance.

God is most great.

On this premise and its morals, we call back to mind the day of the great victory when God has rendered us triumphant in a capable and powerful manner on August 8, 1988 in the second glorious Qadissiya. The victory, its preludes and the concomitant delivery in addition to what we have stated help us understand why embargo on Iraq has lasted for more than nine years now; why the states bordering Iraq, including Iran, have performed the task of field embargo in such a manner as to covetously encourage and support the aggressive Americans and Zionists to continue committing genocide against the Iraqi people by hook or by crook, and why the Iranian peoples have been refrained from visiting the holy shrines albeit they were incited for intrusion into Iraq by force. That might have suggested then contrary to reality it was as though Iraq were preventing the Iranian peoples from visiting the holy shrines so as to act as a cover for the slogans of expansion and aggressivity, which reveals too the reason behind Iran's collaboration with U.S intelligence, Zionism and their supporters in the occupation of Sulaimania in northern Iraq following the 30-state aggression against Iraq in addition to other known examples of hostility such as Iranian air raids on Iraqi targets deep inside Iraq as well as missile attacks for the same purpose. Indeed these examples of aggression and aggressivity help imagine the offensive against Iraq that took place in 1980. By corollary, the answer will be explicit to the question: Do the disclosure of falseness and humbug and the revelation of the right and truth not render a good service to humanity and not only to Iraq or the Arab Nation? It has also become clearer and clearer how and why the day of the great victory, August 8, 1988 is worthy of celebration and rejoice by us, the Iraqi people, the Nation and all good and peace loving peoples. It deserves to be called back to mind all the time as a wonderful, humane outcome albeit all happenings.

By God, indeed, it is an eternal, humane day; and everything, which is dissociated with or contrary to it, is hopeless and cursed.

It is truly a great day that God has wanted it to be an evidence, a token and a banner.

God is most great.

Long live Iraq.

Long live our glorious Arab Nation as a humane example, radiant with love, good, sublime models and a great capability.

Long live the friendship of our people and our Nation with the neighbouring peoples and all the peoples of the world.

Fie on the aggressors' hostility.

Shame on the despicable.

Brothers:

Nations and peoples are the brainchildren of their particular and general history. Despite the existing linkage, in one way or another, between the staring point and the final, or any representation in the development of peoples and nations, any phase in history, qualitatively or situationally, cannot be a replica of the one or many representations antecedent in development. This is not only because time phases are phases of development, or such they ought to be, but because one major aspect of the portraits of history within its rising or falling decades represents those of leaderships in one form or another. Therefore, we can say that history pillars are either general or particular. The general represents a description, action, trait and influence of the collective state formed historically as a general characteristic of the people and nation. It is also a description, action, property and influence of the particular state of those who lead the people and nation, within their phase. The deeper the conviction and the more profound and serious the interaction on a wide sbetween the leaders of the people and nation on one hand, and the people and nation on the other, the closer the general; viz., the leader or leaders. The differences between the general and the particular become merely those of their relative phase, that is, differences of historical development between one phase and another with the concomitant consequences of the transferred customs. The phase becomes as though it were, in one way or another, the general traits of the leader or leaders in addition to all that had passed down or desired to be connected with the traits and customs of the previous historical phases.

Hence, it has become manifest to us how and why a leader leading other leaders can transform a nation or people in morals and reality into a state of great ascent, upward and downward, when the leader or leaders are congruent with their peoples through sublime humane principles. Likewise, a ruler and other rulers can turn a nation and a people into a state of retreat, implicitly, from its opportunity and role after they have distanced themselves from their people and nation. They become unable of activating the capabilities of the people and nation at the level of what ought to be and must due to the ruler's feeble influence, deviated treatment of affairs or to his weakness of polarizing them to the right course. Thus we comprehend now why and how the happenings took place in the two Islamic states concerning their proclamations or beliefs and between two subjects described as Islamic states, namely, Iraq and Iran.

The religious description, brothers, applied to nations and peoples whether these peoples are of Islamic doctrine or affiliated to it or under a description and tokens of other religions, cannot annul the history of the nation before and after conviction or affiliation, nor abolish the influence of their general history when it opposes or contradicts the new doctrine which is in the light of broad promulgation, level of commitment and profundity of its effect, introduces new morals into the history of nations. It can even bring in entire historical phases stamped with the new principles or their essence in accordance with the level of faith of the leader or leaders in these nations of the new doctrine, and not only the peoples in addition to their readiness to consider its fundamentals a basis of their thinking, action and moralities.

Hence, if the requirement of genuine association with the collective state of the public and the elite of the people and nation, more specifically with the ruler or rulers of the new religion, to position themselves in fancy and reality in accordance with its standards and to act ethically, is not met, then the history of the nation in the final outcome would cease to persist and to interactively serve as a link between old and new. The new religion becomes merely formal and general, as a placard for propaganda, and not for commitment and genuine interaction. Here, the description depends on the congruence or discrepancy between the collective state of the nation and the particular one of the ruler or rulers in this respect.

Brothers,

Iran was within the Islamic State, led by the Arabs in general who were for some time its leaders, rulers or guides. After that, there emerged local rulers, leaders or assistants to others in Iran from the very peoples who did not entertain anything good for the central authority in the Islamic State. They publicized that they were worthy of a better treatment, frequently evaluating and deeming their worthiness on the basis of Iran in the past under the leadership of Persians and Khosraus who had occupied parts of the neighbouring countries, be they to the east or the west, and not on the basis of their fusion in the new state under the banner of its faith and principles, and under its leadership in pursuance of the explicit Islamic principle in governance and administration, i.e., "And obey God, and obey the messenger and those charged with authority among you." Instead, they often dissociated it from its context, rendered it inoperative or attempted to interpret it incompatibly with the Pure Prophetic Tradition or the consensus of the Islamic nation. Sometimes, they had given a narrow sense to "those charged with authority among you" so as to confine it to the governor of the province at that moment instead of the Caliph or the Commander of the Faithful "Amir al-Mu'mineen" for the purpose of facilitating the task of the provincial governor in Iran and disputing with the Commander of the Faithful or the Caliph or rebelling against them.

This situation had found its other level in Iran in the light of abolishing the fundamental periods in the history of the Islamic State as well as the greatest part of its representative symbols. It is now restricted to certain bright periods yet dissociated from its foundation and the context of continuity and profundity. They had been put in a frame of contrariness that accepts no compatibility or interaction with all other great bright periods. The Iranians concerned had given an opportunity to all these notions and the situation to incessantly perpetuate the history of Khosraus in Iran without taking into consideration the history of the Islamic State. Thus they were severed from this profound history and the jurisprudence (fiqh) of the State, the better of which cannot be perceived then except by considering the development nowadays, because it had been matured and developed at that time by the Islamic State.

In Iran, a new jurisprudence has been encouraged since long time ago to grow not on the basis of an independent judgment ijtihad which is right, indeed it is a duty as well, to deal with a certain case, circumstances and by-products of the development within its successive phases, but on the basis of a new birth dissociated from its profundity and lineage. For about eight hundred years, the link has been severed from the point of birth and its subsequent development and from the whole jurisprudence and legislations of the Islamic State at the period of the Rashidi (Rightly Guided) Caliphs and from the history and representative symbols of the State, its banners and jihad, and by so doing the Iranians offered an opportunity for the Iranian history, in pursuance of a certain conception, to perpetuate without disruption and for a new jurisprudence detached from the profound jurisprudence of the Islamic State and symbols including the sons and grandsons of Caliph Ali (May God be pleased with him). Some people were fought or dismissed from the course of linkage on account of their stances or even their names. A case in point is that names like Abu Bakr, Omer and Uthman were excluded from the lineage of descendents of Ali and Al-Hussein (May God be pleased with them) except for some selections according to a particular purpose or purposes from the jurisprudence of Caliph Ali (PBUH), most often cited or intentionally wedged into a certain frame for a certain object or objects or at least according to a formula which was intended to appear as if it were in contrariety rather than conformity with the jurisprudence of the Islamic State and its history.

At all events and no matter how bright the periods are within the whole course and its genuine origin, their ember often fades when separated from its source, their influence wanes like a fragrance of a sweet-smelling perfume which vaporizes when it is no longer confined in its flask or when the glow of a kindling live-coal faints as it is detached from its brazier.

The description given above concerning the conduct of the Iranians concerned towards the Islamic history had encouraged Shah of Iran to celebrate and rejoice the 2500th anniversary of the Persian State, transgressing Iran's history within the Islamic State and taking no consideration of the Iranian peoples' stance or even the elite then. It is the same account behind the Iranian rulers who, when the great principles of True Islam were absent or absented, sought to destroy Baghdad in 1980 and to occupy Iraq, just as Krosch had destroyed Babylon in collaboration with the Jews in 539 B.C.

What we have stated expounds why Iranian students are not taught the history of the Islamic State. Why do even the religious schools there not teach the history of the Islamic State and its jurisprudence at the time Iran was part of it? By corollary, how and why did Iran launch aggression against Iraq? The war subsequently broke out and lasted for eight years. From these considerations we can arrive at an explanation for the reason behind the offensive triggered by anti-Iraq leaders, for the continuation of the war for eight years and the failure of all efforts including those exerted by the Islamic Conference Organization and its Committee formed to stop the war and bring about peace between Iraq and Iran at that time. The war had ceased only when God has ordained so in the battlefields. He has bestowed victory upon the faithful who have a history rooted to its base of great faith and associated with the virtuous models and symbols as an inseparable whole. It is a triumph over those who have endeavoured to make Iran's history dissociated from the sources of perpetuity of the Islamic history and have dismissed the elements and virtues of love to be replaced by hatred which has been wedged by their own manner and thus distanced them from the stream of the principles of great Islam to continue uncleansed by the water of its upright principles.

Therefore, we can explain why and how the US administrations which claim association with the principles of Jesus Christ (PBUH) have allied with the abominable Zionism, the aggressor upon the land and the rights of the Arabs and Palestinians and have supported the Zionists to murder women, elderly men, children, indeed the whole people in Palestine, the cradle of Jesus Christ (PBUH), and other Arab parts too. Why and how do US administrations ally with some countries to kill and cause famine to the Iraqi people and destroy its cultural structures and even archaeological monuments?!!

Hence we can say how in every period following destruction and stagnation Baghdad, and indeed the whole Arab and Islamic nation in general with few familiar, relative exceptions, seemed as though it had been as frozen as it were in the previous period in all walks of life and in all domains including socials relations then. For about eight centuries, development had come to a halt, in fact it had receded incessantly in another direction because the foreign Ottoman ruler, albeit his claims of ruling in the name of Islam, was in reality running the State through a narrow prospect relevant merely to the legacy, apprehensions and aspirations of his nation and people. He had neglected the Arab Nation as a nation of morals, holding a sword and a banner, of great leading cadre of faith and its banners, of construction and other sublime morals and as an authentic reference to interpret Islamic principles and whatever is relevant to them and to offer words of advice for selecting one or more appropriate approaches. That ruler had overlooked the history of the Islamic State and its great models. If a reference was made to a certain aspect of its heritage, it was treated separately, selectively and formally to, on the basis of the ruler's liking of this account and not as a faithful, responsible, far-sighted and deeply rooted in the fateful association and profundity of the legacy of the great principles. Therefore, the people and nation did not interact with the Ottoman ruler who was kept isolated from the people in opinion, stance and decision. Likewise, the people's attitude, opinion and aspirations were far from operation, but mere theoretical hopes. All this took place when the ruler's traits either did not exist or interact with the people, and indeed when history discontinued or was inoperative in the best terms of description, as if its final episode prior to the fall of the Ottoman rule were identical, again in the best terms of description, to the one that had by a single day anteceded the Ottoman domination of Baghdad and by corollary all the Islamic states in general.

From the above and from the qualitative level of the sublime morals warehoused in Baghdad and the capability of being insightful on certain, familiar conditions, we can expound how the sun had not shone on the people of Baghdad and others during the reign of the State run by the Ottomans in the name of Islam when Baghdad faded and how now light shines on the foreheads of many sons of the Islamic community and all Arab sons, people of the sword, pen, banner and great principles when the rays of light are beamed from Baghdad, the city of great history and glory.

Brothers,

When we celebrate and rejoice the Great Victory Day on August 8, 1988, we do not only mean to affirm the worth and importance of heroism which is closely connected to its genuine source, the base of deeply rooted faith and the morals of a nation that has always been mujahid, holding a banner, faithful to the Most Compassionate, Most Merciful, trustworthy of the value and effectiveness of all relevant principles and shouldering the responsibility of playing the leading role of development as a decisive element in the conflict. We also want to stress the significance of the principles of construction and the leading role of man as a believer in life progress and in boosting love over hatred, exalting the object or objects, means and morals of construction over backwardness and the spirit of destruction and endeavouring to connect the present to its genuine sources of faith and deeply rooted past. Such a man has achieved two triumphs over the side of opposite description and tokens: one victory within the soul derived from one's feeling that man is a living part of a whole rather than a cast-off, acting in such a manner as to satisfy the soul in performing his duty towards the One worshipped alone; and another victory over the enemies when only the impossible conceals them from death. It is not just one victory. When achieved by any of the above descriptions it either introduces the melancholy of feeling of loneliness into a road shared by no one else or the gloom of despair, which no matter how intense is the feeling of self-content, preserves in this case the sense of defeat in the enemy, thus burning their backs with the lashed of triumph and perhaps the consciences and minds with scars and bruises caused by the triumphant's gun bombardment.

We would like to say to the whole world including the Iranian peoples that the victory won by the Iraqis is a great humane victory because it is a victory of progress over backwardness, of faith and truth over falsification and of construction over destruction. Had this victory not been accomplished, God forbid, and had another, different thing been achieved by the stoned Satan's act of strike, materialism, promulgated by the West under the leadership of USA in the Middle East region and perhaps in other places, would have created a horrific situation of destruction caused by the backward condition that is secluded in a lacerated image albeit dressed in religion or in some aspect of it. Faith would have been defeated after being shun by the people's souls and minds as a result of what would have befallen them under the slogans of religion. Zionism and USA would have won through people's recourse to their protection, clutching at a false hope for peace and stability, which they can provide to peoples in the face of the ghoul of backwardness and destruction beside the war drums of sectarianism. Iranian peoples would have remained captives of deception for a long time after they would have wasted their energy, suffered subsequently bitter disappointment and immersed in the crimes of aggression and destruction. Indeed, victory has salvaged the Iranian peoples from all that and rescued the peoples of the world from the domination of Western materialism whose view and way of life would have had the upper hand at the expense of balanced, spiritual principles and the right moral and living aspects for a long time to come.

Therefore, it is the right, indeed the duty too, of peoples and nations, not only the Iraqi people, to chant: "Long live August 8, 1988" as a day of victory of all peoples, for righteousness over falsehood, sublime morals over the abysses at the lowest bottom.

Long live the people holding the victory's banner, principles and sword…

God is most great.

Great people,

We realize that we have burdened you with the style of this address. But as you have been familiar with what you have listened to or read on such occasions you realize too that we endeavour, as best as we can, to make our speech of simple style, be it for the young, middle-aged or elderly. Yet the simplified style, dear people, is not always capable of expressing the meaning of what we want to state once our statement assumes an intellectual course and sets off in accordance with this description. Furthermore, our problem does not lie within the Iraqi people, but with others, you know. It is with the people who allege that through their aggressivity they can express a thought. Thus, it is inevitable that we deal with the wrong premise of their thought and replace it by a correct one, as we think or believe in. We also deem it appropriate, even at the level of the general humane standards common to all people wherever they set or act on a fair and objective basis. Our apology, valiant men and praiseworthy women, beloved boys and girls, is that, on this occasion as well as on others, we, in Iraq, have begun to communicate by gestures and by eyes and not only by speech which these two support. We also communicate when our consciences meet in the space of great love and become so exalted that a constant pledge is held to build our country, boost the faithful men and defend our dear homeland and the great principles of our glorious Nation. Therefore, I hope you comprehend what we say for you are capable of comprehension and you are the Arabs' cranium. The simplified speech, brothers, in this respect, might take a course that could fracture the foreheads and split the hearts of your opponents. However, this is not our intention. Now they have come to know that you can, in the name of God, cleave foreheads and tear livers in the battlefields. Instead, we try to cure the sick souls and hearts and open, in the best manner, the eyes to the facts as they are, whenever the minimal guess is possible. We are performing our national and humane duty after seeking the assistance of God, glory be to Him. Based on the knowledge of more than eight thousand years of civilization and eternal heritage of our nation, we state (quoting the Quranic verse): "Go, both of you to Pharaoh and speak gently to him." -Truth is the word of God- and maintaining, concomitantly, the essence of the mujahid people's stance and its leadership, as a believer in God, homeland, nation and people. God is most great.

Glory and sublimity to the martyrs of glorious Qadissiya…

Life of pride and sublime morals to our wounded and the living who are provided with sustenance: "Among the believers are men who have been true to their covenant with God; of them some have fulfilled their vow by death, and some are still waiting, but they have never changed in the least." Truth is the word of God.

Greetings to our POWs in the cages of captivity in Iran, and great pride of their patriotic stances there…

Greetings to the true believers wherever they are…

Long live our glorious Nation…

Long live Iraq…Long live Iraq…

Long live Palestine, free and Arab…Long live the people of Palestine and the mujahids of the great stance.

Glory to the families that had the order of honour for the loss of their sons, our honest sons, in the fields of honour and jihad, families that have patiently endured the pain and hurt with hearts replete with faith and sublime morals.

Long live friendship with peoples…

May God help all the Iranian families which were stricken with the calamities of the war, yet they are still adherent to and entertaining a good-intention and love for relationship with Iraq because they realize and understand the significance and causes of the conflict and those who had triggered it.

God is most great…

God is most great…

Shame upon the despicable