In what is purported to be his last known wartime speech - a video never before aired - Saddam Hussein tells Iraqis that God will help them expel the American-British occupiers.
"The faithful will be victorious over the sinners, regardless of the duration of the struggle and the forms it might take," Saddam said. With patience, the "ordeal" can be overcome, he stated, and the invaders driven from Iraq.
The videotape, bearing a presidential stamp, was obtained by Associated Press Television News from a former employee of the Iraqi satellite television channel which, under Saddam's regime, was responsible for filming and distributing official presidential video.
The employee said it was made on April 9, the day American troops streamed into central Baghdad and pulled down a towering Saddam statue.
An audiotape of the address was obtained and aired April 18 by Abu Dhabi television, which said it also was told the speech was delivered April 9.
At the same time, Abu Dhabi television also broadcast a videotape, also said to have been made on April 9, showing Saddam in the midst of an enthusiastic crowd in the Baghdad district of Azamiyah, a few miles north of the area occupied by U.S. troops that day.
As Saddam prepares to begin the speech, in a generic room with a backdrop of pink-and-orange drapes, he told aides, "The sooner we finish it, the better."
Then, at the end, Saddam added an uncharacteristically human note of uncertainty. "How was my reading as a whole?" he asked people off camera, and then added, "It's OK."
The ousted Iraqi leader said, "The duration of invasion or occupation ... will be the exception, a brief period, compared with the period in which people live free in their homeland."
He said this generation of Iraqis was determined to defend the nation "until the end, as desired by God, in this form or some other form."
"The ordeal, regardless of how bad it might become, requires patience to be overcome, so that those behind it are expelled," he said. (Albawaba.com)
© 2003 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
