MARK STEYN: Saddam hits back

The Daily Telegraph ^ | February 8, 2003 | Mark Steyn

[MadIvan]

Saddam Hussein yesterday lashed out at the British interviewer he said had left him "distraught and humiliated". The 65-year-old veteran dictator and novelist accused Tony Benn of abusing his trust and announced that he had lodged a formal complaint with the Independent Television Commission and was considering legal action.

"I let Tony come into my life, into my heart, and this is how he betrays me," added a bitter Saddam, speaking from Baghdad. "I welcomed him into my family. I let him hold the hand of my son-in-law. Then I made him put it back on the mantelpiece."

Fighting back tears, the psychotic statesman revealed how the wily Benn had lulled him into a false sense of security. "He led me to believe he was a credible interviewer who'd ask me tough questions. He said it was a chance to let the world see the real me, a man at ease with vigorous debate and on top of the facts.

"Instead, he just lobbed me puffballs about whether I've any message of global peace I'd like to share with the millions of Britons who admire all I've done for the Iraqi people and hope I'll soon have the chance to do for them. By the third question, the interpreter had stopped translating and just said, 'He's giving you the full Monica again.' I said, 'From the way he keeps leaning forward, I'm worried you mean literally'."

Saddam bit his lip as he continued. "I feel such a fool. He's made me a laughing stock. He's destroyed my credibility."

But, although most critics denounced the programme as "unduly non-intrusive", longtime cultural observer and French President Jacques Chirac said he thought it had been a "model of a successful interview". "It was respectful, it was dignified," he said. "If I have one criticism, it is that I myself would have insisted on perhaps just un soupon more fawning. But, as I told Monsieur Saddam, I should be so lucky. Normally, when you agree to do these things, they send over some pushy little Englishman who asks a lot of impertinent questions and keeps touching the suit and calling you by the first name. But enough of Le Touquet."

Meanwhile, Mr Benn has also come under fire from the BBC's James Naughtie, who accused him of unethically blurring the hard line separating interviewer and interviewee during the time he spent at the President's secluded "Nerveland" ranch. Mr Benn agreed that in one scene he was glimpsed wearing a surgical mask, but only because he'd complained about an odd tickle in the throat. The so-called "moonwalk" sequence was an involuntary spasm after passing a ventilation shaft. He conceded that he had had several "sleepovers" in Saddam's room but said he was horrified that Mr Naughtie would try to make something "kinky" out of it.

"If you don't mind me saying so, Jim," he replied, angrily, "this is what I would call one of your weapons of mass distraction. We know that, if you'd been doing the interview, you'd have insisted on your own suite at the Baghdad Hilton, and run up a lot of room service and so forth. I wanted an opportunity to hear what he had to say, and the obvious place to hear it was lying down in his bed while he stroked my hair. It was a very helpful pre-interview chat. Very sweet and charming. He tucked me in."

The lifelong socialist also admitted that the Iraqi President had dangled him over the balcony but said it was only to give him a better view of the snake pit, especially of the unusual one with two heads and a yellowish glow.

In a further twist to the controversy, a defensive US Secretary of State Colin Powell accepted yesterday that satellite intercepts he'd claimed proved Iraqi officials were obstructing inspections could, in fact, be out-takes from the Benn interview. Under questioning from Jeremy Paxman, the Secretary agreed there were distinct tea-slurping sounds in the background, as an unidentified senior official dictates instructions to a supine lackey:

voice a: Captain Ibrahim? [Paxman argues the words are actually: "Comrade Anthony?"]
voice b: I am with you, O most excellent majesty.
voice a: Remove.
voice b: Remove.
voice a: The expression.
voice b: The expression.
voice a: Nerve agents.
voice b: Nirvana.
voice a: Not Nirvana. Nerve agents! Idiot! Who d'you think I am, Courtney Love?
voice b: I hope not, your munificent eminence.
voice a: Exactly. That's one scary lady.
voice b: "Remove the expression 'nerve agents"'? But I never brought it up.
voice a: Yes, you did. You said, "Many people throughout Britain share your love of Quality Street. I see you have a box on top of that file marked 'Nerve Agents'. Would you be willing, O wisest of beings, to reveal your favourite flavour?"

Mr Benn now says he wants to put the Saddam interview behind him and get back to the "ishoos" - specifically, the next ishoo of Hello! in which Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta Jones give us a heartwarming tour of their purpose-built nursery, for which, at Miss Zeta Jones's request, Mr Benn has agreed to write the picture captions.

[Dan Day]

"If I have one criticism, it is that I myself would have insisted on perhaps just un soupon more fawning.

This should clearly have been "soupçon", but the froggish letter probably got mangled and dropped in the cut-and-paste.