President Saddam Hussein’s Address on the 80^th Anniversary of the Establishment of Iraqi Army

In the Name of Allah, the Merciful, the Compassionate

Brothers, Sons of Our Glorious Nation,

Great People,

Sons of Our Valiant Armed Forces

Before we speak at length about today’s occasion and why we celebrate and honour this glorious day, the Sixth of January of every year, we pose the following questions:

Questions like these may go on. They may be extended along the same line of inquiry. They all seem to presuppose the existence of that which is “root” and that which is “branch”. If we elaborate the presupposition that the root has its qualities and that the branch has other qualities which are not connected to the root, we may arrive at results that are far from true and which we do not believe in. Every root, in one of the stages of its historical formation, begins as if it is the inevitable result of the factors of its formation. Birth out of it in subsequent stages is also an inevitable result. Therefore, no root is of any value unless it is suitable to be the basis for the continuation of the essence of its qualities in later stages. This is how nation and leadership create history. In both, nation and leadership, history plays its role, and each creates the type for the other. Thus, nation, army and leadership create history. History creates them through their true and legitimate affiliation to it and through its inspiring them with its sublime meanings. The more inspiring and asking for inspiration are possible and able to create high qualities on the basis of their meanings, and the more related they are to a foundation for a new creation, the more correct the connection is and the more expressive of the decisive historical correlation, regardless of the predominance of the role in the creation and description of the result, in this stage or that, of any of the names we have referred to and any other names analogous to them.

From this, Brothers, it follows that while we are celebrating the birth of our Army today, we are celebrating and honouring the potency of the great people of Iraq in the fields of struggle and armed jihad. The great people of Iraq are ready to be. If the Iraqis have their historical chance, they are capable of creating an army, undefeatable and powerful, by right, to break down falsehood and defeat it always. Accordingly, we are celebrating and honouring the armies of our Sumerian, Babylonian, Akkadian and Assyrian ancestors, or the Armies of Victory which had Iraq as the base of their great reinforcements in the direction of the East or wherever a battle became necessary to decide the potentials of the Iraqis. We can also say that we are celebrating and honouring the Army of the Glorious Qadissiya and the Immortal Mother of All Battles, our modern, mighty, powerful and loyal Army whose birth was a patriotic one in the conscience of its sons in this stage on January 6, 1921, when its first battalion was established, regardless of the nature of those who ruled the country then.

We celebrate special meanings of a specific kind and a specific description. We will pay no attention to the low meanings that tried to oppose the sublime meanings. The failure of those opposing meanings bore fruit and yielded the meanings of endeavour, virtue, courage and glory in a splendid tree whose crown is the battle helmet, whose decorations are the battle equipment and whose characteristics are the characteristics of its heroes who have immortalized the description and the position of glory and honour to their people and their nation in all fields, under all names.

Why have the sublime meanings won and yielded fruit? They have won, Brothers, because they alone are capable of representing the true quality of our people and their faithful native and national will. They have won because they have represented the stand which formed the great and glorious historical meaning of all the armies of Iraq, under all of their names and under all of Iraq’s names. They formed the great historical meaning which the great leaders willed. That meaning materialized in a cordial interaction between the will of the leadership and the will of the people, bringing together the unity of stand and expressing their potency whenever action was sincere, effective and loyal. That meaning, thus, uplifted the position of the history of Iraq, its role and its qualities, while making of all that had passed a firm and a true starting point for marching forwards and upwards.

Thus, too, the branch was fused with its root in the Second Glorious Qadissiya and in the Immortal Mother of All Battles. The fusion was so complete that it became impossible for any, other than its sons, and the sons of the people of Iraq and the glorious Arab Nation, to distinguish which was the root and which was the branch. The branch bore all the meanings and the true essence of the root in quality and attitude. This happened to the extent that each single quality that uplifted our people and our army showed itself as if it were the root, while it was but a branch if measured by the yardstick of its stage. The branch, thus, came to bear the qualities of the root and to represent it. And the root came to be alive within the stage during which the branch gave it a true representation with the highest meanings. That root had been cut out of communication for a long time before the zealous sons of Iraq, the sons of their glorious nation, became masters of the test through which they successfully proved to be the loyal sons of the history of their people, their nation and their army. They became masters of the chance to decide the fate of their peoples’ will, the direction of its action and the stand the people and the army take. Meanwhile, all the meanings of potency and all distinguishing characteristics were born out of the womb of the nation and the loins of the people and the meaning and fragrance of history.

Now, we can address our Army and say to it:

You, brave, heroic, loyal, trustworthy and great Army,

Allah’s greetings to you! You are the might and the potency that trusts in Allah. By Allah, you have represented all the sublime meanings which came under all the titles and names we have mentioned. You are the arm and the forearm in battle, the heart of steadfastness in adversities and the conscience of history. You act in the name of your people and your nation, without whose depth and meanings you would not have been what your are now.

We honour your Day, you brave heroic Army, on the Sixth of January of every year to celebrate all the sublime meanings. We celebrate the brilliance and radiance of faith, jihad, civilization and the stand representing all of these titles, not merely the abstract meaning nor the general descriptive meaof that day in the year 1921, nor only its meaning within that stage.

We celebrate and honour you under all of those banners and under the crown of the meanings of all those great historical stages. We do this in order to restore the role, the cause, the stand, the high-mindedness and the spirit of sacrifice and selflessness, with all that fortifies the nation and the people and all the past history they created for them. It is a history which looks brand new while connecting all of its great steps forward and its high morale with the past of our nation and our people, in all the previous stages.

Greetings, salutations, high regards, pride and glory to you!

Veneration to you and pride in all that pleases Allah of your stands and sacrifices, while you take your jihadic and heroic steps carrying the Allah-is-the-Greatest Banner, ahead of your great people to record for them and with them a new history that fortifies the nation, raises its place and brings shame on the treacherous unbelievers and their self-abasing followers.

A loving greeting to you for every stand in which you have chivalrously responded to the call of right and the meanings of manhood and struggle in the Iraq of virtue and glory. A loving greeting to you for every chivalrous stand that fortifies the Arabs and the Iraqis. Thus chivalry, on the basis of that stand, becomes a great historical act which sheds light upon any darkness, dispels any dimness, guides the marchers on the tracks of the road leading upwards. While pointing to any weakness, cowardice or abasement, chivalry arouses determination to cling to the meaning of the principles and the stand of the faithful men. It expels from the chests and the souls and the ranks any inclination to retreat and any stand that may bring shame upon history and give the enemies false impressions and embolden them to call Iraq names that are unbecoming to its history and the history of the nation.