Last Word of Hussein...
Saddam Hussein: Open Letter to the American People
July 7, 2006
Saddam Hussein’s defense lawyers have released a letter Saddam wrote
while in prison to the American people. The following is a direct
translation of that letter.
In the name of God, the Merciful, the Mercy-giving.
“And among the Believers are men who are true to that which they
pledged to God. Some of them have fulfilled their pledge by death and
some of them still are waiting and they have not altered in the least.
That God may reward the true men for their truth and punish the
hypocrites if He will, or relent towards them, for God is forgiving,
merciful. And God repulsed the infidels for their wrath. They gained
no good. God averted their attack from the Believers. God is strong,
mighty.” [Qur’an 33:23-25].
To the American people:
Peace upon those who believe in peace and desire it, and the mercy of
God and His blessings.
I address you in this letter from the place of my confinement, as my
attempt on the basis of my moral, human, and constitutional
responsibility so that no one among you might say that no one came to
us with a message of peace after the war began, refuting the arguments
for it and desiring peace for you and for our upright, loyal, heroic
people. And as I say this, I do not know whether my brothers and
comrades who are leading the Resistance outside the prison have come
to you with a letter before or not. That is because the “democracy” of
your leaders has prevented me since my arrest and until now from
getting newspapers and magazines or hearing radio and television and
has isolated me from the world and has isolated the world from me so
that I might not hear or see anything from outside my place of
confinement.
Is this the true face of democracy and human rights that they advocate
outside America!? Or have your rulers lied about it? This includes the
killing of people in prisons and jails, some of them by means of the
pistols of the American investigators. Or has all of this along with
other details that would turn an attentive person’s hair white been
concealed from you by your officials such that you do not know the
truth!?
Anyway, I address you with this letter of mine in the hope that it
will reach you and that you will hear it or read it. And on the basis
of my responsibility to bring the facts before people, whatever their
color or nationality, for that is our duty to them, just as they have
a duty to us not to accept evil.
I address you today as my attorney the eminent lawyer and Professor
Ramsey Clark has asked that I write this letter of mine to you.
Professor Ramsey has presented an excellent example of a humanitarian
in his person and in his colleague Professor Curtis Dobler, both of
whom left a positive personal impression on me. On this occasion I
wish to salute their courage as they have volunteered for the task
although they know the dangers that surround them in carrying out
their duty, in particular after criminals have killed four of the
defense attorneys.
People of America, it still seems to me that the officials in your
government are still lying to you and are not giving you true
explanations of the reasons that led them to embark on their
aggression against Iraq. In what they have said about the reasons they
have deceived, from the starting point, not only the international
community, and in particular the European Community but also the
peoples of America themselves, knowing beforehand that the facts were
contrary to what they were declaring. Untrue is what they said, after
their lies were exposed, about having been deceived by their
intelligence agencies and by the stooges that they brought along to
serve as their puppets in Iraq, just as old imperialism and the old
empires of the 19th and 20th centuries used to do. What we are saying
is based on many facts, the major ones being as follows:
1. The inspection teams – that came to Iraq in the name of the United
Nations and carried out searches even of some private houses as well
as government departments, presidential palaces and government
documents – those teams knew that Iraq had no weapons of mass
destruction because most of the leading members in those teams were
Americans and British and in addition they had spies and volunteers of
other nationalities. Those teams searched Iraq piece by piece from one
end to the other and never found any information contrary to what they
and others were told by Iraqi government representatives. The
inspections lasted for more than seven years. And in addition to the
teams that traveled by car and on foot, they used spy planes,
helicopters, and satellites in space. The American and English
officials thought that this was their historic chance to strike Iraq
and destroy its legitimate aspirations and the lofty cultural and
scientific achievements made in the course of 35 years, making use of
the information gathered by their spies in the inspection teams and
making use of the so-called war on terror after the 11 September
incident that struck America. They shuffled the cards to bring up the
goals that they had already decided upon earlier, and these were not
the goals that they publicly announced at the starting line.
It was their assessment that the unjust embargo had not destroyed
Iraq’s will nor halted its legitimate aspirations to develop
economically, culturally, scientifically, and as a civilization in the
conditions of a new independence. They believed that Iraq had come
close at that time to breaking the economic embargo as the result of
the cooperation of those who cooperated with Iraq on the basis of
mutual benefit and fraternal national feelings as far as the Arabs
were concerned. The officials in your country thought that this was
their chance to impose their will on the world by means of their
control of the Middle East’s oil and its production and marketing in
new ways and for new goals – those about which we spoke in and before
the year 2003 – in addition to attaining one of their Zionist goals
and winning support in the election. Iran and its lackeys played a
dirty role in making aggression appear attractive and in facilitating
its implementation.
2. The American officials did not withdraw from Iraq after they became
hard pressed, but declared that the facts were contrary to what they
had claimed before the invasion that took place in March and April of
the year 2003. If they had been truthful when they claimed that they
had been deceived as a result of the information they had been given
and which they used as the cover for their invasion, and which they
declared at the time was sufficient justification for the invasion –
declaring at the time that it involved things that they said affected
the security of the United States – then they would have withdrawn
from Iraq after discovering that that information had been false. They
would have apologized to the heroic Iraqi people, to the American
people and to the people of the world for what they had done.
None of the Americans asked their government before the war how Iraq,
a country that had still not emerged from backwardness, could threaten
the security of a country like America across the Atlantic. And for
that matter why would Iraq want to threaten America, which at that
time had not violated the territory of Iraq. If the American officials
wanted to promote the claim that Iraq’s threat was precisely involved
in the opposing stances taken by Iraq and America over the Zionist
occupation of the land of Palestine and other Arab land, it could be
said that Iraq is not the only state that takes an opposing stance to
that of America in regards to the issue, whether that be Arab states
or other states in the world. Furthermore, who has authorized America
to make the countries of the world tailor their policies to America’s
measurements, and if they don’t oblige, then war should be waged
against them? How can one understand America’s call for democracy if
it does not permit a difference of opinion even in issues of a
regional character, to say nothing of international ones?
Another lie was the claim of American officials that Iraq had links to
what they called terrorism, although British Prime Minister Blair
declared that Iraq does not have any ties to so-called terrorism and
had no internationally prohibited weapons, forcing Bush to declare the
same thing. Despite that, none of the important American personalities
asked President Bush on what sort of rational analysis or what sort of
realistic information this claim rested. Do you know, esteemed ladies
and gentlemen, why they didn’t ask? Because some of your prominent
personalities are directed in what they do by hidden forces that
distorted the image you received of Iraq’s positions. They had been
laying the groundwork for years to facilitate aggression from the
start. Therefore no one asked the American officials, for example, why
no Iraqi took part in the events of 11 September!? And if the
participation of individuals in the attack on American targets isn’t
to be taken as proof of the involvement of any country in those
events, then how do you accuse a state like Iraq, the features of
whose political system are known, of so-called relations with terror?
How can you consider this charge to be one of only two on the basis of
which aggression was launched against the people of Iraq, destroying
their property and achievements and bringing their lives under daily
and direct threat?
Do you know, esteemed ladies and gentlemen, that I asked one of the
American officials who talked with me perhaps two weeks after my
arrest, just what was it that you based those false charges on? He
said that as far as the weapons of mass destruction were concerned,
“we didn’t have anything to confirm what you were saying.” And as for
the links to terrorism, he said, because you, Saddam Hussein, did not
send a letter of condolence to President Bush after the incident [of
11 September].
I smiled bitterly and told him: as regards your claim that you didn’t
have confirmation of our statements, it seems that your officials lie
and imagine that officials in countries around the world do not tell
the truth, or that many of those who have relations with you in fact
do not tell you the truth, neither when they oppose your policies nor
when they agree with them. This is a dangerous matter, not only for
the countries of the world but because they then pose a danger for
America as well, if nobody in the world will tell America: ‘this is a
mistake’ and ‘this is unacceptable’! And at that time when American
planes were striking targets in Iraq and destroying public and private
property, killing Iraqi citizens including women and children for no
reason and imposing on Iraq their unjust embargo, prohibiting Iraq
from importing even pencils for children to use in primary schools,
what exactly is it that should obligate Saddam Hussein to send a
telegram of condolences to the president of the state whose officials
have committed all those crimes, unless it be out of hypocrisy and
weakness? But because I am neither a hypocrite nor a weakling I didn’t
send Bush a telegram of condolence. But I did agree on the telegram
sent containing condolences in the name of the government of Iraq and
sent by Comrade Tariq Aziz, the Deputy Prime Minister, to our friend
Ramsey Clark and through him to the stricken families.
Are the great states so deluded as to imagine that whoever does not
send a letter of condolence deserves that war should be waged against
him, his country, and his people!? Here you see how the American
officials used even your own blood to promote their reckless,
aggressive policy. Is this the kind of morality that people should
have? Or men? Or officials? There is nothing graver than for disasters
to ravage people who have been stricken by delusions, committed
wrongs, and wantonly despised the roles of others. The worst disease
of the American officials who involved the Americans in war against
Iraq is this.
3. After I was arrested they made vain attempts to use intimidation
and threats against me. One of their generals conveyed that
intimidation and host threats and tried to bargain with me, promising
to let me live if I agreed to read in my own voice and sign a prepared
announcement that was shown to me. That stupid announcement called on
the people of Iraq and the courageous Resistance to lay down arms.
They said that if I refused, my fate would be that I would be shot
just like Mussolini, as my interlocutor put it. But, as you know me
and would expect of me, I disdainfully refused, not even touching that
dirty document with my hand and sullying myself with it. I told them
if I were given the chance to address my people, I would call them to
more resistance.
Seven days later, to reinforce themselves, they sent a group to talk
with me. They said they were from an American University and that they
wanted to engage me in a broad discussion. I agreed and I confirmed to
them that Iraq didn’t have any of the things the American officials
claimed and I advised them [the US] to leave Iraq quickly and
apologize to the people, warning them that they were going to get what
they now are facing and what they are now embroiled in – in fact, the
fate I expect for them is worse than what they are facing now – and
they will never have an adequate chance to pull their arms and
equipment out of Iraq if the two halves of Iraq engulf them, and they
will engulf them, God willing, because our people are deeply rooted
and conscious. They know that our liberation can be clean and complete
only with their unity, and that tolerance must be the basis for the
orientations of our people within their ranks, and that wounds must be
bound up, not ripped open.
I say, I told them all that at that time but they didn’t change their
methods; they didn’t replace the keys of falsehood, and they are still
knocking on the doors of wrong, failing to try the door of legitimacy,
even though they now know. In this connection, attached to this letter
are some verses from a long ode; a selection of 56 verses. [Not
translated here.]
4. It is neither reasonable nor convincing that a country like America
to which the doors of the intelligence agencies in the east and most
of the countries of the west have been opened did not know the truth
and could not know the truth. Although I am convinced and believe that
many countries in the world have an interest in war or wars, she [the
United States] does not have an interest in war even though she might
believe she does. The contrary, in fact, is the case.
America is a big country on the other side of the Atlantic. It has
developed a unique unparalleled power such that I think some people
there imagine that it is on its way to attaining the crown of the
world all for itself as a world empire. Have they not learned a lesson
from their war in Viet Nam? The west used to promote the idea that
world Communism and the Soviet bloc threatened their interests and
also the security of the entire west. But despite that promotion, this
was nothing but a flimsy cover. Nevertheless, America used it and
wrapped itself in it until the heroic Vietnamese people expelled them
by force.
As to their invasion of Iraq, it came in a situation that made the
first step easy from the standpoint of the reaction of the
international community because of the international balance of
forces. But it came in a situation that might make it more costly that
its war in Viet Nam. That is because when America was expelled from
Viet Nam it did not lose its standing, or we might say it only lost a
small part of its standing. But when it is expelled and routed from
Iraq, which has no great power to support it directly, it will lose
the fundamental basis of its standing.
In fact it has now already lost the foundation for that standing and
its reputation has begun to decay. It is no longer able to wield the
big stick that it formerly threatened to use. It used to accomplish
more by threatening to use force than by really using force. I will go
further and say that after its war in Iraq, that stick no longer
frightens many people and America has come to need the silence of the
smallest and simplest countries and tries to please them in order to
get them to stay quiet about America’s crimes and reckless, deviant
policies.
Before, many of the world’s countries used to court the United States
and most countries in the world, all except a few, used to fear her
threats or parried them with defensive arguments. But now Mao Zedong
of fond memory is laughing in his grave because his prediction has
been fulfilled and America is a paper tiger. This is by the will of
the Living Eternal God, and by His agents on earth, the heroic
Mujahideen in glorious, virtuous, militant, jihadist Iraq. So God
bless the heroic people of Iraq and God bless the jihad and the
mujahideen.
Esteemed ladies and gentlemen of the peoples of America, the time has
come to an end in which greatest and best-equipped armies could
scatter the organized formations of the opposing army and thereby
bring a war to a close. Now you see our courageous army, our heroic
people, and our Mujahideen replacing the system of organized
formations with a new kind of warfare. And when the Americans on the
ground become targets in the vicinity of the guns of the
revolutionaries, who attack them as deadly human bombs with nothing
more than their bodies filled with faith in God, American superiority
is worn down over time. In fact in the near future that superiority
will become a burden whose equipment will be difficult to withdraw.
So, will America trust the voice of rationality and logic that calls
for the preservation of what still remains, or will Satan the deceiver
and the hate-filled supporters of Zionism keep pushing the Americans
until the waves swallow them and they sink to the depths of the raging
sea?
Who, after all, appointed the American government to be the world
policeman, to form the world in the mold that it likes, giving
national orders to the countries of the world?
Saddam Hussein, ladies and gentlemen, is an honorable patriot and an
honest man. He is a statesman resolute in implementing the law, just,
but benevolent. He loves his people and his nation. He is
straightforward, doesn’t double-cross or deceive. He speaks the truth
even against himself. Do tyrants like Bush like such characteristics?
If he were a person like De Gaulle or even like Reagan, perhaps he
would understand them, or at least would not abhor them. But I must
say to you that your country will discover more, esteemed ladies and
gentlemen. It has lost his reputation and his standing. Indeed the
American who used to travel around the world respected and safe and
welcomed wherever he went, is now no longer able to step outside
America without a mine detector. And the State Department issues
warnings for you constantly about what world regions are dangerous to
American lives.
It was American officials and their polices themselves that have
created an atmosphere of anti-American hatred in the world by means of
their arrogant behavior, their haughty aggressive attitude, their lack
of respect for international law and the security of the world –
including the security of my Arab Nation through their support for the
Zionist entity in Palestine – and other world and human issues.
Today you are in a bad predicament with the world and nobody can
rescue you but yourselves. If you reform, you will open for the world
and for yourselves a new opportunity. But if you are heedless, that is
your decision. What you need is free and fair competition and peace in
order to have security.
The years that followed the 18th century had long gone when they came
as invaders to the Middle East to bring back memories of things that
awaken and arouse. The Middle East, and the Arab homeland in
particular, was the cradle of prophets and messengers from God. Is the
cradle of the prophets, where the prophets are buried in their tombs,
also the home of devils and their mirror images – the malicious
invaders?
We have believed, and our faith was suited to us, Then came the
Zionists with a devil for a guide. They stormed in on us as invaders,
unjust. The did not stop their advance nor sit still, Their diabolical
patron has prepared their dilemma. But as for us, we have the Merciful
God as Patron.
People of America, despite the crimes your government inflicted on our
people, our Arab Nation and humanity, the people of Iraq – and I mean
by that the Iraqis, not those with split loyalties who prefer to serve
foreigners rather than their own people – I say the free people of
Iraq even in their present circumstances are not thinking about their
destiny alone but about the destiny of others wherever it’s possible
to create a solution that treats a painful problem.
On this basis I said to some Americans when I was in my prison, why
don’t you come to an agreement with the Resistance to designate a
country with a charter and power to which the Resistance can hand over
those American soldiers whom they capture, rather than executing them
as currently is said to be taking place. In fact the extent to which
the Resistance is responsible for this is unknown, but people who are
equitable know that America has not abided by international law in any
of its activities in Iraq, including the Geneva Conventions regarding
prisoners and detainees. The Resistance has no secure place in Iraq
where prisoners can be kept. So whether the Resistance is at all
responsible, or whether the responsibility lies with some other
parties that have no connection to the Resistance, the justification
for it is that there is no secure place for prisoners to be kept.
Therefore in order to fulfill humanitarian needs and to eliminate the
justification [for killing prisoners] I make this proposal to you and
to the national Resistance and to anyone concerned, and I make this
with the best of intentions. If you accept it and respect the Geneva
Conventions then the argument of those who kill rather than detain
prisoners will have vanished. But if your government does not accept
it, then it will bear the responsibility for refusing and for whatever
befalls our people and the heroic Resistance as a result of your
government’s violation of international law. This will be particularly
true if the number of American prisoners increases in the future, and
we think that it will increase. Or is it that your government can’t
see anything until it feels it?
Esteemed ladies and gentlemen, the time has come for your government
to look at all people as equals before international law regardless of
the size of the countries to which they belong. Whoever violates
international law in his policies and the behavior of his army, he
alone must bear the consequences for that policy. And if his policies
are not in accordance with the letter of international law, he has no
right to call others to protect his rights in accordance with that
law.
Esteemed ladies and gentlemen, whoever missed his or her chance to
take action to try to prevent the war still has a chance to act to end
it and bring back peace and freedom to Iraq in accordance with the
choice of its people without foreign interference by anyone whoever
that may be.
People of America, I address you not from weakness nor as a
supplicant. I, my people, my brothers, comrades, and my nation – we
address you on the basis of our moral and human responsibility. I tell
you that officials whom you know, and first among them your President,
lied to you and deceived you and tricked you using the media that
portrayed Iraq to you as incorrigible, and Saddam Hussein as a hateful
dictator, and that his people hate him and that his people are just
waiting for their chance to get at him. Some of them just wallowed in
lying falsehood to the point that they openly declared that the Iraqis
would meet the invading armies with roses and celebration.
I know that lots of people don’t do a lot of analysis; they don’t have
the time or the ability or the desire to do careful assessments when
presented with falsified news so as to uncover the truth. The American
peoples had no chance to inquire, for example: why, if the people of
Iraq hate Saddam Hussein, how he managed to defeat the Iran of
Khomeini after eight years in the aggressive war that Iran sought to
impose on us under the slogan of exporting the revolution beginning
with Iraq? People of America, the victory over Khomeini’s Iran was not
due to the short length of the war, but came only after eight years of
grinding warfare in which tens of thousands fell and hundreds of
thousands on the Iranian side.
Then if Saddam Hussein were a dictator, why did he establish a
parliament with elections for the first time in the year 1980 during
wartime, when there had been no parliament in Iraq since 1958? If he
and his government were dictators, how could he visit schools,
universities, towns, and villages and spend the night with the people
wherever the sun went down? How could he travel around and lead at the
battle front at night and during the day even in the trenches in the
front lines on the battlefield among the Muslim soldiers!?
Yes, esteemed ladies and gentlemen, your government deceived you, and
you, or rather most of you, had no chance to inquire of themselves or
of others in order to discover the truth because the Zionists in the
lobby who advocated the war together with some of the centers of power
were deceiving you and tricking you, hiding from your eyes the real
truth, exchanging the facts for falsified and slanted information.
Last but not least in this regard, if Saddam Hussein were a dictator
hated and despised by his people, how is it that his people endured
him and why was he chosen President by referendum?
People of America, the misfortunes that have afflicted you and
afflicted our Arab Nation and within it our heroic Iraqi people –
including the breakdown of America’s standing and reputation – were
only caused by the reckless behavior of your government and by
pressure from Zionism and power centers that influenced the government
to commit those crimes and scandalous actions for specific ends that
have nothing to do with the interest of the American peoples. The
massacres and blood that now flows in the streets and countryside of
Iraq in torrents – the responsibility for that falls on America before
all others. You know, or rather you have now come to learn, that
neither the stooges whom the American forces brought in on board their
aircraft or as shamefaced presents aboard their tanks, nor Iran, which
pushed and still pushes forward those who support it and whom they
support, would be able to cause the bloodshed, or the destruction of
the honor, and property of our people and our state had not America
undertaken the aggression and invasion and issued the orders. It is
still issuing orders in the Green Zone. Therefore America bears the
burden of all those crimes and outrages. So, will you put an end to
what is going on by using the methods of direct truth without evasion
and digression? Or will you invite the machine of death to continue to
eat away at the flesh of Iraqis and the flesh of Americans without
doing anything to resolve this?
It is your historical responsibility, esteemed ladies and gentlemen.
If you reform, you could save what remains of the standing and
reputation of America and its legitimate interests. If you do nothing,
you will be keeping silent over something evil. “God grant us patient
perseverance and let us die as Muslims.” [Qur’an, 7:126]
People of America, the wars that your government promotes in the world
– one of them being the war in Iraq – with input from certain centers
of power – which you know better than we – are not in the interests of
the American people. You know better than many how you paid in blood
so that you might liberate yourselves from British colonialism and
after that how the United States of America was unified and what
rivers of blood were shed in order for that to come about. So,
esteemed ladies and gentlemen, how do you accept this interference
that abases America before it abases Iraq? How can you accept not only
the invasion but becoming mired in the internal affairs of Iraq? You
know that Iraq is a land of prophets, messengers, and righteous
figures. You know that Baghdad is the fourth holiest city in the Arab
homeland – after Mecca, al-Madinah, and Jerusalem – in the sight of
all of the Islamic world and all of our Arab Nation. How can one
imagine that Iraq could reconcile itself to colonial rule, even if it
comes, this time, under another name and with other slogans? Save your
country, esteemed ladies and gentlemen, and leave Iraq.
Peace.
God is greatest. God is greatest.
[signed] Saddam Hussein, President of the Republic of Iraq and
Commander in Chief of the Mujahid Armed Forces.