Saddam Hussein's address (with voice of translator)

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 honour, 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 honourable 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 Hussein had hoped you would be. So God rewarded you for your endeavours and delighted your hearts with the crown of 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. God is greater. Long live Iraq and its chivalrous armed forces. God is greater. Long live our glorious Arab nation and its struggling masses that have let their stand be known against the cowardly aggression. God is greater. Long live a free, Arab and steadfast Palestine. God is greater. May all the traitors and those of weak wills and two faces be banished.

God is greater. Let the lowly be cursed.

Source: INA news agency, Baghdad, in Arabic 1505 gmt 20 December