Excerpts From Iraqi President’s Address

Excerpts from Iraqi President Saddam Hussein’s speech Thursday, the anniversary of the end of the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war, as provided by the official Iraqi News Agency:

One of the lessons of recent and distant history is that all empires and bearers of the coffin of evil, whenever they mobilized their evil against the Arab nation, or against the Muslim world, they were themselves buried in their own coffin, with their sick dreams and their arrogance and greed, under Arab and Islamic soil; or they returned to die on the land from which they had proceeded to perpetrate aggression.

This has been the case with all empires preceding our present time. If this is what history tells us about its judgment on all times and eras of the past without exception, can we then describe those who are trying to ignore history now except in the words which no wise or prudent person would wish to be described with? This is the inevitable outcome awaiting all those who try to aggress against Arabs and Muslims. If anyone wants to learn from history, anyone with greed and arrogance combined in himself, he ought to remember this fact and think again.

Otherwise, he will end up in the dustbin of history, as 20th century politicians say. We always stood, and continue to stand, to learn from all such lessons, whenever the horns of aggression loomed large against us.

We never faced, nor will face, any aggression relying basically on our force of arms, or our muscles and the muscles of our people, but rather on the strength of our faith, in the belief that Allah always helps the faithful and their just cause to prevail over injustice....

The forces of evil will carry their coffins on their backs, to die in disgraceful failure, taking their schemes back with them, or to dig their own graves, after they bring death to themselves on every Arab or Muslim soil against which they perpetrate aggression, including Iraq, the land of jihad and the banner.

We say this to refute the grumbling and sibilation of those bragging their power, governed by the devil, their master in every evil act and crime which they perpetrate ... But if they wanted peace and security for themselves and their people, then this is not the course to take.

... The right course is of respect to the security and rights of others, through dealing with others in peace and establishing the obligations required by way of equitable dialogue and on the basis of international law and international covenants. The right way is that the Security Council should reply to the questions raised by Iraq, and should honor its obligations under its own resolutions.