SADDAM SPEECH
Baghdad INA in Arabic 1505 GMT 20 Dec 98
[FBIS Translated Text] Baghdad, 20 Dec INA
President Saddam Husayn addressed a historic speech to the sons of our 
great people, the gallant men of our valiant Armed Forces, and the 
glorious Iraqi women.
   Following is the text of the speech:
   In the name of God, the merciful, the compassionate. Our great 
people, gallant men of our valiant Armed Forces, and glorious women in 
the Iraq of glory, jihad, and virtue. You are now in the fifth day after
the night of 16-17 December, when a new aggression was started by the 
enemies of God and the nation. With it, resistance and combat started 
once again in the course of the immortal Mother of Battles.
God has wanted it to be a source of honor, pride, glory, and blessing 
for you in this life and in the hereafter. The Almighty, if he wills, 
will make it a source of shame and disgrace and the guilt of a major
crime in this life and in the hereafter for its perpetrators, the 
enemies of God and humanity. May God have mercy on the souls of our 
righteous martyrs, and may they be the happy dwellers of Paradise.
   You were up to the level that the ones who love you and who take you 
as an honorable example for their life had hoped you would be.
   You were as we expected you would be. Your great bravery and the 
trilling sounds of the glorious Iraqi women awakened many weak and sick 
Arabs in the Arab homeland and the world. You pushed them towards 
awakening and towards shouldering the responsibility before the nation 
and the peoples and before oneself and humanity in a manner that would 
be worthy of its meaning.
   You were up to the standards that your leadership and your brother 
and comrade Saddam Husayn had hoped you would be. So God rewarded you 
for your endeavors and delighted your hearts with a glorious victory 
that is officially acknowledged and admitted by your enemies.
   May God blind the eyes of your infidel and oppressive enemies, and 
unite the entire Arab nation, including the Arabs that are weak of 
spirit after they have been cleansed by the great meanings and true 
patriotic uprising that you believe in.
   Our Lord decide thou between us and our people in truth, for thou art 
the best to decide. [Koranic verse]
  Allahu Akbar [God is greater]; long live Iraq and its chivalrous armed 
forces.
  Allahu Akbar; long live our glorious Arab nation and its struggling 
masses that have let their stand be known against the cowardly 
aggression.
  Allahu Akbar; long live a free, Arab, and steadfast Palestine.
  Allahu Akbar; may all the traitors and those of weak wills and two 
faces be banished. Allahu Akbar; let the lowly be cursed.