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Last Updated: Sunday, 16 November, 2003, 23:02 GMT
Full text: 'Saddam' tape
An audio recording purportedly of Saddam Hussein on the occasion of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, was broadcast on the Dubai-based TV station Al-Arabiya on 16 November.

In the name of God, Most Gracious, Most Merciful.

Say: "Nothing will happen to us except what God has decreed for us: He is our protector", and in God let the believers put their trust.

Say: "Can you expect for us (any fate) other than one of two glorious things - Martyrdom or victory? But we can expect for you either that God will send His punishment from Himself, or by our hands. So wait, expectant, we too will wait with you. [Koranic verses]

The land and fire of great Iraq will devour hundreds of thousands of soldiers without being able to achieve their plans or hopes
'Saddam Hussein'
O great people, God willing; O magnanimous mujahideen, lovers of martyrdom, and God's loved ones; O magnanimous men of our Armed Forces wherever you hold on tightly to the weapons of the valiant resistance; O magnanimous men and glorious women in the field of resistance and raising the roaring voice of right against the criminals and weakness. I am addressing you all regardless of all your job titles and ranks, and wherever the slogan in the name of God, Iraq, and the nation under the banner of God is great and come to join the jihad is shouted.

May God's peace, mercy, and blessings be upon you. May you enjoy many happy returns of the day. May God bless your Ramadan and the Id that follows it. May your fasting be accepted, God willing.

Our martyrs are in paradise while the dead of the louts and our other enemies are in hell. O God, make this month of Ramadan the prelude to and foundation of victory as it was during the great Badr [battle], [which marked] the era of the vanguards of Arabs and Muslims who were honoured by faith in you.

'Picnic'

Brothers and sons! Before the US-Zionist-British aggression, and that of those who allied with them against Iraq, we said that the evil alliance can harm Iraq, and that it can kill, destroy and plunder, but at the same time, it can expose the true nature of America and Zionism and their slogans, through which they deceived those who were deceived in the world or succumbed for a significant period of time.

The evil ones have placed themselves in the same dead end that the almighty wanted to place them
We said this and we also said with entrenched faith and with the firmness of whom you know as a mujahid among your ranks for dozens of years [meaning Saddam], that the evil ones will not be able to occupy and colonize Iraq.

They themselves said what you heard from them at the time. They imagined and they made others imagine too that they are going on a picnic to occupy Iraq and destroy what they called weapons of mass destruction. Their lie focused on this as an initial cover for their big crime after the crime they had perpetrated when they planted Zionism in the Arab homeland.

What are they now saying and what is the truth? Now they - and other voices in the world - are saying the same thing that we told them before the aggression, namely that Iraq is free of the weapons they claim it has.

Iraq will also be immune to their evil intentions to colonize it, settle their armies in it, and dominate it, God willing. The evil ones have placed themselves in the same dead end that the almighty wanted to place them for some reason that Almighty God can see but we cannot.

Their devil made them believe this [that they can occupy Iraq]. This is why the liar of the United States and the liar of Britain have been taking turns in playing roles and making tours of the world to beg for money, forces, and support.

'Confession'

Some sides responded shyly to them out of fear or out of coveting something. Thus, they sent a few hundred soldiers to Iraq or donated a few hundred million dollars. They are chased by the curse of God and the people. Some sides apologized for not being able to offer anything. To the latter, we say that we and our people appreciate their stands.

The failing ones do not know or they might know that the land and fire of great Iraq, which God has honoured by faith, jihad, and valiant resistance, will devour hundreds of thousands of soldiers without being able to achieve their plans or hopes.

Here is the confession coming anew from the servants of Zionism - the liars of the black house [the White House]. The confession admits the reality that the agents they brought, after their tanks and armies entered the land of Iraq, as scabby dogs that accompany or follow the caravan, do not have the minimum weight or influence on the great, honest, and faithful Iraqi people. Furthermore, not one of them can even walk on the streets of Baghdad or any Iraqi city.

They began to study their failure and their envoys toured Arab countries in search of what they call advice on Iraq. We tell them and the others: Iraq is part of its nation, and when the circumstances are ripe, it plays a vanguard role or a vivid part of the vanguards of this nation. Iraq is made up - if the expression is right - of a special chemical structure that cannot be understood by anyone other than its sons or the competent faithful sons of its nation if they honestly consult and co-operate with the honest and sincere Iraqis.

Those criminals, who harbour aggression and evil, should resort to politics in order to correct the mistake, or even the heinous great crime, so that the great sons of Iraq who managed its affairs and led it to progress from a backward situation when many Iraqis were barefoot - they led Iraq high to where God wanted it to be in all walks of life and achieved great, qualitative, broad, and comprehensive progress despite all attempts by the evil ones through imposing wars and sieges that accompanied the march in all circumstances and at all times - the sincere sons of Iraq should return by the free will of the people to manage the affairs of the country anew.

'Nothing but failure'

The people have tested them for decades, and the people know them. The people are well aware of their successes and failings. The most important thing our people know about them is that they love their people and work for their people's sake. Our people also know that they are serious in everything they do or say and that they do not work for themselves. The people know that they are loyal and dedicated even if they commit mistakes.

All of this should happen when the soldiers of aggression and occupation are outside Iraq and when any illegitimate foreign presence is no longer there in Iraq, as was the situation in Iraq before. This is the solution, and there is no other solution.

If the tyrants find it difficult, let them try more months and a longer period of time. They will only claim the lives of more people, destroy and loot, but they will never gain anything other than failure. Along with their failure, the lives of more Americans and Britons and others will be claimed.

Thinking that the Iraqis might be deluded if the foreigner replaces the names of his old agents with new agents, even if some used to assume ranking positions in our march - may God forbid - is a wrong belief. This will not deceive the Iraqis. The Iraqis cannot be deluded by this.

Those who are brought by the armies of the foreigner and are decided by a non-free Iraqi will are like the foreigner. Therefore, resisting them and the foreigner, and even before the foreigner armies, is a religious, national and human duty.

There is no other way for the invaders but to leave the country, the land of Iraq, the homeland of Arabs and Muslims, cursed and frustrated.

Keep pressure on them, O mujahideen. By God, the road to jihad and resistance is the best path for God, for man, and for history. It is the only way to ensure the evacuation of the tyrannical enemy forces from our country and restore full freedom and full sovereignty for our people over their land and in their homeland.

God is great; God is great. Long live Iraq; long live Iraq. Long live our glorious Arab nation. Long live Palestine, free and Arab from the [Mediterranean] sea to the [Jordan] River.

God is great. Glory and loftiness be to the martyrs. God is great. Let the lowly be accursed.

BBC Monitoring, based in Caversham in southern England, selects and translates information from radio, television, press, news agencies and the Internet from 150 countries in more than 70 languages.





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