The military invasion of Iran by Saddam's regime, which forced us to fight back and accept the problems that are caused by war, was not an uncommon course of action. Military invasion is constantly used by the arrogant powers against independent peoples who are after freedom. During the first few years of my presidency, Ahmed Sékou Touré, the President of Guinea - who was an outstanding revolutionary, respectable, scholarly and political personality in Africa and was respected in Europe and the entire world - visited Iran and in the meeting with me, he said that he was not surprised at Iraq's invasion of Iran after the Revolution. This is because judging from experience, one of the things that the arrogant powers do against the majority of independent countries is that they use military pressure in order to prevent them from the goals and values that they specify for themselves through engaging their financial and human resources in a war. This was the plan that the enemy had prepared against us.
The Americans and their current Secretary of Defense, who keeps saying nonsense against the Islamic Republic every few days, were among those who were closely cooperating with Saddam Hussein, the same person that they are trying to capture these days. They were providing him with scientific support as well as weapons and intelligence so that they could defeat Iran, but they were not successful. I would say that as long as you remain vigilant and as long as our government officials feel responsible in the real sense of the word, America and other superpowers will not be able to harm the people and government of Iran in any way. [Oct 14, 2003]