The following excerpt is from a speech made by Saddam Hussein to the Iraqi people on August 8, 2002, to mark the fourteenth anniversary of the Iran-Iraq War. In his speech, Hussein states that Western threats do not frighten him and that Iraq is ready to repel any attack made against it.

In the name of Allah

The most compassionate, the most merciful

Nay, we hurl the truth against falsehood, and it knocks out its brain, and behold, falsehood doth perish!

Our great people, our valiant men and women, our men of the heroic armed forces, our Arab brethren, fellow believers, wherever you may be, peace be upon you. . . .

One of the lessons of recent and distant history is that all empires and bearers of the coffin of evil, whenever they mobilised their evil against the Arab nation, or against the Muslim...