‘Saddam tape’ surfaces
An Australian newspaper has announced that it has been handed an audiotape containing a message allegedly from Saddam Hussein.
According to the Sydney Morning Herald, the message calls on the Iraqi people to wage a ‘secret war’ against US forces in Iraq.
The paper reports that it was handed the tape after the people charged with delivering it saw the station’s vehicle outside the Palestine Hotel in Baghdad, having failed to pass it on to the Arabic network al-Jazeera.
The Herald claims to have played the tape to ‘an Australian linguistics expert and to more than a dozen Iraqis’, who believed the voice on the tape was Saddam’s.
Copies of the tape will be handed over to the US authorities and to al-Jazeera to be examined.
According to the paper’s transcript, a ‘tired-sounding’ voice on the tape urged Iraqis to ‘face the invaders and kick them out from Iraq.’
The 15-minute message was interspersed with coughs and explained, ‘Through this secret means, I am talking to you from inside great Iraq and I say to you, the main task for you, Arab and Kurd, Shia and Sunni, Muslim and Christian and the whole Iraqi people of all religions, your main task is to kick the enemy out of the country.’
The voice on the tape also refers to Saddam Hussein’s birthday on April 28th and the looting of the Iraqi National Museum.
Coalition leaders have hinted recently that they believe Saddam Hussein survived the conflict and is hiding somewhere in Iraq. There have been several reported sightings, an alleged letter and supposed footage of the deposed leader since his disappearance at the start of the coalition invasion.
