Saddam Hussein appears exhausted, confused and resigned to defeat in a newly released video. It is believed to be his last wartime speech and it has not yet been broadcast. Those who have seen it say the video bears a presidential stamp and came from a former employee of the Iraqi satellite television channel. In it Saddam says: "The faithful will be victorious over the sinners, regardless of the duration of the struggle and the forms it might take." The employee said it was made the day American troops streamed into central Baghdad.
Wonder if he means the first incursion from the airport? That would have been before the bombing of the International House of Dictators resturant.
In it Saddam wears open-necked olive drab uniform and black beret. There are bags under his eyes and his speech is slow but it can't be proven that it is him on the tape. At the end, Saddam asks an aide: "How was my reading as a whole?" and then adds, "It's OK." He said: "The duration of invasion or occupation will be the exception, a brief period, compared with the period in which people live free in their homeland." His references to a changing "form of struggle" seemed to imply the possibility of a long-term resistance movement or guerrilla war. "The ordeal, regardless of how bad it might become, requires patience to be overcome, so that those behind it are expelled," he said.
Interesting, has anyone heard anything at all about if the search of the crater has turned up any body parts? Seems to have dropped off the radar. |