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rah
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Apolyton Prince of Moderators, Master of Reason
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Lord of the Ferrets
Jan 1970
time: 23:27
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They did a special article on him in the Chicago Tribune this morning
Spokesman brazen in denying obvious
A joke in West, a hero to some Arabs
By Hugh Dellios, Tribune foreign correspondent. Tribune foreign correspondent Liz Sly contributed to this report
Published April 8, 2003
DOHA, Qatar -- The U.S. Marines stood Monday on Baghdad's National Parade Grounds, right under the crossed-swords monument where Saddam Hussein used to watch military parades. Gunfire crackled across the city center.
Just across the Tigris River, seemingly in an orbit of his own, Iraqi Information Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf was performing a daily denial routine so bizarre that it makes him seem like a character in a late-night comedy skit.
The invasion is a lie, al-Sahhaf insisted. The "infidel" Americans actually were nowhere near downtown Baghdad, he said.
"Don't repeat the lies of the liars," al-Sahhaf cautioned foreign journalists on a hotel rooftop practically within sight of the battle. "As our leader Saddam Hussein said, God is grilling their stomachs in hell. I think we will finish them soon."
With a mischievous smile and a steady flow of salty Arabic curses, the bespectacled former English teacher spinning Iraq's version of this war may draw laughs in the West, but he has become a TV hero and a proud symbol of defiance across the Arab world.
Every day, al-Sahhaf appears before the press corps in Baghdad and denies everything, no matter how obvious the Iraqi regime's daily defeats and no matter that U.S. air strikes destroyed the official center for his news conferences.
"The infidels are committing suicide by the hundreds on the gates of Baghdad," he asserted after seeking out his rooftop audience Monday.
It is not just a vacation from reality.
A longtime Baath Party crony of Hussein, al-Sahhaf is trying desperately to rally the party faithful still fighting in the streets for Hussein. Iraqi TV and electricity have been knocked out in Baghdad, but some Iraqis can listen on their radios.
Al-Sahhaf also is appealing to the international community, perhaps still hopeful that it is not too late for mediation. Former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev tried to intervene in the 1991 Persian Gulf war, and United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan successfully did so when U.S. cruise missiles were trained on Iraq in 1998.
Maha Azzam, an Iraqi political analyst at the Royal Institute of International Affairs in London, said sounding tough is a matter of pride, morale and survival for the regime.
"It is important to address the world as if they are still clinging to power, as if they still matter," she said. "If they start sounding less confident, it's a message that things are not going so well."
Besides, she said, Hussein would not be the first Arab leader to try to make defeat look like victory: Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser's aides said Egyptian gunners were downing Israeli warplanes "like flies" at the start of the 1967 Six-Day War. Six days later, the truth of Egypt's humiliating defeat was clear to all.
"No Arab leader or spokesman ever said the truth to their people about a military situation," Azzam said. "But in the West, too, we're often not sure how much propaganda we're receiving from the military."
Al-Sahhaf, 63, is not one of Saddam's most fearsome insiders. But he reputedly was part of a gang that Hussein founded to attack Baath Party opponents in the 1960s, and he later was head of Iraqi broadcasting and ambassador to India, Sweden, Italy and the UN.
Notorious for his temper, al-Sahhaf's creative choice of adjectives has won admirers far and wide. Letter writers to prominent Arabic newspapers debate the linguistic roots of his best insults.
Iraq's enemies are not just enemies, they are "louts," "blood-sucking bastards," "wet dogs," "war criminals," "stooges" and "creeps." Two years ago at the UN, he called Secretary of State Colin Powell "stupid" to his face.
The U.S. invaders? "They are most welcome. We will butcher them," al-Sahhaf has said. Another time he said, "We will welcome them with bullets and shoes," a particularly grave threat in the Arab world.
The capture of Baghdad's airport last week? Never happened, al-Sahhaf said.
"It is difficult for the U.S. forces that are surrounded in Saddam airport to come out alive," he boasted Saturday. "Now the entire direction is in our favor and we will annihilate what is left of the forces that attacked the airport."
U.S. and British officials have reacted with ridicule and derision to al-Sahhaf's claims and boasts, matching his smirk with smirks of their own.
"I personally would like to know where he [received] his marketing degree," joked Air Marshal Brian Burridge, Britain's top military commander in the region.
During al-Sahhaf's denials on Monday, an Arabic translator for one of Britain's global satellite TV stations couldn't control himself and broke out laughing on the air.
But across the Arab world, it is the Pentagon's glitzy film footage and pro-U.S. version of events that look dubious.
In this region, al-Sahhaf is not only more credible, he's a celebrity in his green uniform and black beret, pistol on hip, tongue-lashing the imperialist invaders with abandon.
"I trust the Iraqi TV, and the information minister, Sahhaf, I especially trust him," said Khalid Daraj, an Iraqi taxi driver in Amman, Jordan. "He gives the news with honesty, and he always tells the truth because if he lied once, no one would trust him again."
- - -
The information minister speaks
As U.S. troops advanced within sight of Baghdad:
"They are lying everyday . . . What they say about a breakthrough is completely an illusion."
After U.S. seized the airport:
"Unless they surrender quickly, I don't think there's any chance that they will survive . . . They are completely surrounded."
After a U.S. armored probe into Baghdad, which reportedly inflicted heavy casualties:
"Today, the tide has turned. We are destroying them."
Copyright © 2003, Chicago Tribune
My favorite is the quote from the Taxi Driver. 
RAH
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Arrian
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Kneel before Grog!
Jul 2001
time: 00:27
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quote:
"I trust the Iraqi TV, and the information minister, Sahhaf, I especially trust him," said Khalid Daraj, an Iraqi taxi driver in Amman, Jordan. "He gives the news with honesty, and he always tells the truth because if he lied once, no one would trust him again." |
I'm with you, RAH, this is priceless.
-Arrian
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Lord Merciless
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I don't think this Sahaf guy will get away easily. He had been Iraq's foreign minister for at least 10 years. He is one of the inner circle.
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gunkulator
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Maybe he can get a job on Crossing Over:
"Let me see... yes, yes, I have contacted Saddam. He is telling me that we will crush the infidel invaders under our boot."
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All times are GMT. The time now is 05:27.
Apolyton Time is 00:27. |
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08-04-2003 11:00
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