| KIRBY: Iraqi Info Minister a Crackup
By Robert Kirby Salt Lake Tribune Columnist In times like these it is important to remember a bit of advice from George Bernard Shaw: "Life does not cease to be funny when people die any more than it ceases to be serious when people laugh." Good thing, because lately I have been getting nearly all my grins from Iraqi Information Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf. The guy is a scream. Every day or so Sahhaf, the Joseph Goebbels of Iraq, appears on television and scoffs at the idea of coalition forces posing any real danger to his country. Tidy, eloquent and with just the right amount of patrician outrage, Sahhaf seems entirely believable, though admittedly his cool may have a lot to do with spending most of his day 12 stories below ground. "The mercenaries and criminals are nowhere to be found in Iraq," Sahhaf more or less says. "We are defeating them and they are retreating with many, many losses." Yet even as CNN carries Sahhaf saying this, a smaller screen shot beside his image shows Bradley fighting vehicles drag racing on the tarmac at Baghdad International Airport. "The gangsters are far from Baghdad," Sahhaf vows. "They are somewhere defeated in the vicinity of New York. Curses upon their heads." To prove Iraqi invincibility, Sahhaf claims that a villager armed only with a cowbell and a sacred bone relic destroyed dozens of coalition tanks and helicopters. If such a battle occurred, it does leave one wondering how it went unnoticed by thousands of free world journalists so desperate for news they will interview an MRE. To bolster Sahhaf's claim, Saddam puts in an appearance on "Good Grief, Iraq" and calls on his former subjects to rise up and "strike them with your hands and for your honor." Reading from a prepared statement, Saddam says unequivocally that the Republican Guard will prevail and that the Utah Jazz will go on to win the Super Bowl. As the coalition grinds into Baghdad, news analysts say Iraqi news broadcasts may become increasingly more delusional, eventually being carried live on Comedy Central. Not that war coverage by the rest of the world's media is without its laughs. On Thursday, I watched a CNN reporter carrying a microphone walk up behind a U.S. soldier in the middle of a firefight, tap him on the shoulder, and ask how things were going. Then there was Geraldo "Blood & Guts" Rivera sketching out the U.S. war plan in the sand so the rest of us -- including Saddam -- could see what was going on. On Friday, military planners hinted that they might just surround Saddam and let him continue to ramble while they go about the business of rebuilding Iraq. I really hope so. Left to his own devices, Saddam could end up with his own television series such as "UnReal TV" or "World's Most Dangerous Republican Guard Chases." Stranger things have happened. But until then, we will have to settle for a bloated dictator becoming desperate. You can almost envision the end. "Strike them, I say. In the name of jihad, pay no attention to American gangsters breaking into the room behind me. They are not really there."
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Wow. Now this sounds like an excellent punishment for Saddam. Let him walk the cities of Iraq free as a bird... but absolutely everyone ignores him as if he were not even there. Don't look at him, don't talk to him, don't feed him, etc... Total Social Exile in his own country. He would definitely be in shock and awe.
And put one of those house-arrest bracelets on his ankle to make sure he stays where he belongs. LOL