President apologizes to Kuwaiti people on post-Aug. ’90 events

Baghdad, Dec. 8, INA

President Saddam Hussein has addressed Saturday a letter to brotherly people in Kuwait, following the full text:

Our brothers, the people in Kuwait,

Assalamu Alaykum,

 The more intense becomes the wrong-doing brought to you, and to your brethren in Iraq, by those with whom you have been afflicted, and from those evil we have received after you, or with you, ongoing sparks and fires, that have been raging throughout the years gone by, and which we believe will continue over time to come, unless Allah, the almighty decides, in His Great Power, to resolve what is complex, remove what is harmful and place things in their right order, to the joy of the hearts of believers… we say, the more intensified the harm perpetrated to your brothers in Iraq, with foreign participation and schemes of destruction, and all that has been inflicted upon their lives, including continuous death, not only by way of the blockade, but also by all the destructive power used by the foreign oppressor, … the more we find it our duty to clarify to you what needs to be pointed out on both sides of the situation, and to remind you of what ought to be recalled, and then leave it to you and to the people of our nation and all fair-minded people of the world , to assess accordingly what is old, in addition to what is being inflicted upon the people of Iraq today, and the extend to which the wrong-doing will go in the future. My comrades in the leadership and I have found it in ourselves to go by the adage : “ perhaps or maybe” , in order that we may avoid in Iraq and spare our brothers in Kuwait, whatever distortion or creation of pretexts which encourages the wicked to sink more deeply into wrong-doing and to link their destiny permanently to the foreign powers and their schemes, which will make the hope that such people maybe saved of their own evil selves, or that the others maybe saved of their wickedness, near impossible, if not completely impossible, coupled with their dark fait and bad end, especially as they have inflicted injustice upon themselves as upon others… we say, we found  ourselves refraining from saying what ought to be said until now. Our basic motive in what we want to say is that when the facts are stated, this may help you now even more clearly to interpret the situations and events, taking them back to the 2nd of August 1990. We have relied, and continue to rely, on your intelligence and awareness, as well as o the recklessness of the tyrant and the stupidity of the fools in exposing their wickedness for what it really is; the fools who have thrown themselves into the lap of tyranny openly, publicly and shamelessly. You may then see the naked truth as it is, and take the fair minded position expected of every good citizen and true Arab national, every believer if the faith who loves, and is loved by Allah. This is meant to mitigate the harm suffered by you and your brothers in Iraq. But this position on our part and the true-Arab nationalist principles on which we relied in taking it, particularly after the Beirut Summit Conference and its resolutions to which the Kuwaiti officials also announced their commitment, but were to break them only after a while, misled those who had closed the door of tolerance in their conduct and rejection into believing that our stand had emanated from weakness and was not a decision that we wanted to take in response to the reasons above mentioned and the wishes of the Arabs who had true and genuine desires to resolve differences. You may recall that as soon Allah Almighty graced us with victory in the Second Qadissiyah over those who waged that war, we approached the officials in Kuwait with our readiness to give all the time necessary to resolving the matters that were yet outstanding between us. To our huge surprise, our proposal was met with disinterest on the part of your officials, a position which we were unable to understand at the time, until we witnessed the military exercise played as a war-game in Kuwait in October 1989 under American supervision followed by the testimony given by General Norman Schwarscopf  during the US Congressional hearings of February 1990, in which he said that there was a need to increase the US military presence in the Gulf area, warning against what he claimed to Iraq’s ability  to disturb its neighbors out a time when there was nothing on the horizon except some early and simple signs of the economic conspiracy against your brothers in Iraq and the diagonal drilling of the oil wells across the patrol line drawn up by the league of Arab states, an action which had a negative impact on our oil fields I the south.  Then come the issue of the small financial assistance offered by the officials of Kuwait during the Qadissiya war being considered by them to be debt to be promptly repaid by Iraq. There was also the  decrease in oil prices which slumped from twenty-one to seven US dollars at the time, after the Kuwaiti side glutted the oil market with production well beyond their OPEC quota in spite of all the calls of warning voiced at the time.      

    The course of the conspiracy under such title and assumptions moved quickly, while its most obvious and dangerous aspects emerged in the joint military exercises being conducted under the supervision of General Schwarscopf who was himself later to command the armies of the alliance of the aggression against your Iraq and your Baghdad, the Baghdad of the Arabs and Moslems. Later on  we had in our position copies of the plans and military activities that had been prepared by American official in Kuwait. Then the role designed for Kuwait jointly by the Americans and Kuwaiti officials became clear. Events then followed speedily together with the danger that loomed large through endless provocations which promised no hope for a solution by political means. Under the sensitive and important facts of self-defense and the protection of all that was dear, the events of the 2^nd of August 1990 were bound to happen.      

You have suffered, as we have, the injustice of speedily eventful circumstances, without the opportunity to know what we knew and did not know of the time. You were unaware; and things were made worse by those who did us wrong before the wrong-doing, was done to you, those whose nature and intention were on one joint line with those who had been scheming the chapter of treason and perfidy which was inflicted upon us in Iraq, as one of the chapters of aggression planned against Iraq by the Americans, in coordination with those who cooperated with them and these stooped to the wrong-doing under the pressure of false factors and shallow-mindedness on their part. You have taken a stand over a situation which we regret all that has happened to you because of it, and which has been the cause of your stand the reason why you have imagined things the way you have, so that colours, motives and positions have all intertwined before you as well as before others ”

 Brothers,

We say this not out of weakness on our part or as a tactical move towards an illegitimate goal , but rather to explain the facts as we see them. In the same way as you have your own viewpoint which we respect, and by which we are not angered, however hurtful it might be to us, we are now expressing our viewpoint in accordance with legitimate motives as well. Even though your interpretation and viewpoint may have been on the right track in the past, we are confident that now, or in the future, you will find the truth. The only bases of our anger and, we believe, of yours as well, is the stand and action that angers Allah, or falls down to provide services to foreigners or be part of their designs which mean our nation ill, including us as well as you, and which harbour nothing but harm and ill-will towards our Arab homeland.On this basis, we apologize to Allah for any action that may anger the Almighty, if such an action took place in the past unknowingly by us and was considered to be our responsibility; and to you we apologize on this basis as well.

 Dear brothers

          We wish you just what we wish and work for your brothers in Iraq: to live free, without letting the foreigners control your destiny, will, decision, resources, nor your present or future; to freely decide for yourselves in a way that serves your peoples and your Arab nation and does not leave to your containment by falsehood, or to your occupation by oppressive force.

You know that your Iraq is rich in its principles, history, values, faith, and people. Along with these riches which are, according to the values of faith Arabs, more important than all material resources, its rich in its economic resources too. If petrol is the basic source of riches and wealth in Kuwait, it's but a part of the riches of your country Iraq. Your petrol may dry up, or the world may transfer to another source of energy, whereas resources of riches in Iraq are sustainable.

The weakness of capabilities of a small people, when they isolate themselves from their nation, is something that you have experienced in Kuwait, and other people experienced it also, when the officials in your country isolated the people from the Arab nation, to the extent that your riches, including the personal wealth of your official which are deposited in foreign bank, are now controlled by the foreigner. What is even more better and dangerous, is that, as you can see, your country is under direct foreign military occupation. You know that when foreigners occupy a country, they do not soil the land only, but also the spirit, religion, and minds. They deface the soul of the people, except the soul of those who carry their weapons and resist. We, along with the people of Iraq, greet those faithful young people, who are carrying weapons against the foreign forces of occupation, and to those who see their occupation as an ignominy of which the land and the people must be purified by fire and the other means.

Greetings to those noble and courageous people, alive be they or martyrs. They have brandished banner of right against wrong and disgrace. They have saved you from being accused of infamy had you subscribed to the foreign occupation that your rulers wanted. In fact they have lightened some of our, and other fervent Arabs, responsibility regarding the foreign occupation of Kuwait, which is part of the great Arab homeland. 

Dear brothers,

Someone may say that the occupation of Kuwait would not have taken place if the Iraqi army had not entered and then left Kuwait.We would like to remind you that the Americans were in Kuwait preparing for aggressive military exercises against Iraq before Iraq enter it. Then Americans reveal only part of their objective, and hide the bigger part which is exploiting your riches, making you no more than employees under their supervision, transferring your officials into local manager of an American oil production company and deciding the quantities, prices, and to whom to oil may be sold by the company’s original manger in Washington or New York. Their designs include all the Arab Gulf countries as well as Iraq. If Iraq’s entering Kuwait is the reason behind this as far as Kuwait is concerned, what is the reason of deploying their armies in the Arab Gulf region now, in what practically looks like an occupation in their endeavor to occupy Iraq, God forbid?   

 Who but the Iraqi army and people stopped them from occupying Kuwait prior to August 2 ? The Arab nation, including the people in Kuwait would express its solidarity with the army and the people of Iraq if this happened at that time and the Iraqi army confronted the foreign forces that occupying Kuwait?

The basic motive of the conspiracy against Iraq, including the 1991 aggression and the persistence of the aggression until now, is that they are well aware that the Iraqi leadership, your people, and your army in Iraq would not remain a mere bystander vis-à-vis any foreign occupation of any Arab land, including Kuwait, and the Zionist occupation of Palestine. Were they sincere in their declarations that they had come to liberate Kuwait from the Iraqi army, they would have withdraw their forces and said that they would come back to defend it if Iraq tried to enter it again! But they occupied Kuwait and deployed their forces in other Gulf countries.

They are continually increasing their presence and influence, and are aiming now at occupying Iraq, God forbid.

          We do not doubt your advertency but it is our duty to say to you these forthright words. Nevertheless, they are not all what we wish to say to you, but we saw that it is the right time to tell you this, because you have seen intentions of the officials of Kuwait, and of the occupying foreigner. The timing of these words comes from the public statements of Kuwaiti officials and their hand in hand schemes with foreign armies to harm Iraq, and the facilities they are providing to the foreign armies to enter Iraq as occupation forces just as they occupied Kuwait. American and British jetfighters continue to raid and destroy Iraqi property and to kill Iraqis coming from Kuwait and across its air spaces, as if the twelve years that preceded the Beirut Summit conference and its Arab resolutions, which the Kuwaiti officials disowned, were not enough to calm down their hatred. Some of them wake even more impertinent in order to please their masters and to cover their treason by yet another treason, by publicly saying that they have met with some agents, who hold the Iraqi nationality or so they claim. These agents announced the reasons behind that meeting and what they agreed upon with the Kuwaiti officials they added that the Kuwaiti officials will send their representatives to attend the conference of treason and conspiracies against Iraq that is to be held in London. At the same time, the Kuwaiti officials said that they were meeting with them for the purpose of consultations. What consultations is there between them except conspiring against Iraq and interfering in its internal affairs under the supervision of the foreigner …?! 

 Are you going to pursue these brothers? Can’t you still see the right interpretation of the events of before and after August 2, and the motives behind the harm that was inflect on Iraq?! Moreover, isn’t anyone of the Iraqis or of the people in Kuwait right to ask: Since the agents have joined forces by the will and the direction of the foreigner to harm Iraq and the Arab nation, why don’t the believers and Mujahidins in Kuwait join forces with their fellow believers and Mujahidins in Iraq under the umbrella of God the Almighty instead of the umbrella of London or Washington and the Zionist entity, to discuss their affairs?! In the forefront of their affairs comes the Jihad against the occupying armies of infidels in order to wash away the infamy inflected on the Arab nation and the harm inflected on the people in Kuwait and in Iraq.

If Kuwaiti officials or others, asked: Why?! One would answer then by saying: We are conducting consultations of free men against the consultations of slaves; consultations of Mujahidins against the consultations of agents, and consultations of believers in God against the consultations of those who have betrayed their God after having betrayed their Arab nation. It is a consultation in this real sense and not interference in anyone’s internal affairs.“Deface, our Lord, the features of their wealth, and send hardness on their hearts, so they will not believe until they see the grievous Penalty. The Holy Qur’an, X, 88.

 God is the Greatest..

God is the Greatest…

May the debased be despised.

Saddam Hussein

Shawal 3, 1423 H.

Dec 7, 2002 .