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The image of Iraqi Information Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf, who achieved brief fame as he pledged the US-led forces would be slaughtered even as their tanks were 500 metres away, is selling like hot cakes on a T-shirt, The Times reported in London yesterday. Hours after going on sale on the website of Football 365, the T-shirt had become a bestseller, the British daily reported. Available only in Iraqi military green, the image on the chest shows the information minister in his trademark black beret and rimless spectacles over the legend "We are in control." Sahhaf's daily briefings, with their...

Top Ten Things Iraq's Information Minister Has To Say About The War 10. "We're pulling down the statues of Saddam to have them cleaned" 9. "Don't believe that stuff you see on CNN...or NBC, CBS, ABC, Fox or MSNBC" 8. "If you ask me who the winner is, it depends on what your definition of 'is' is" 7. "Iraqi television is off the air because we didn't want you to have to sit through 'Becker'" 6. "Do you know of any job openings for a lying weasel?" 5. "Wolf Blitzer and I are engaged" 4. "Iraqis are in the streets...

Thomas SowellThe recent deaths of journalists in Baghdad are more than just personal tragedies. Both the chances that these journalists have taken and the indignant reactions by the surviving journalists are a sad sign of a growing lack of realism in our times, especially among the intelligentsia in the media and in academia. More than a century after General Sherman said, "War is hell," it still seems to come as a great shock to some people when journalists get killed in the middle of a battle zone. The fact that they were warned beforehand by American authorities that no special...

There was shock and disbelief in the West Bank and Gaza Strip Wednesday as Palestinians gathered around TV sets to watch US Marines and Iraqi residents knock down a giant statute of Saddam Hussein in Tahrir Square in central Baghdad. "I'm stunned and appalled. I can't understand what is happening," said Rustum Abu Ghazalah, a 30-year-old shopkeeper in the center of Ramallah. He and grim-faced fellow shopkeepers zapped from one Arab TV station to another with the hope of discovering that what they were hearing and watching was nothing more than a US-produced Hollywood film. "This can't be true," grumbled...

The television pictures of U.S. tanks in Baghdad seemed undeniable, but Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's spokesman denied them anyway - with his usual flair for insult. ``There is no presence of American infidels in the city of Baghdad,'' Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf asserted outside Baghdad's Palestine Hotel on Monday. "The infidels are committing suicide by the hundreds on the gates of Baghdad," he told reporters gathered on the roof of the Information Ministry. "As our leader Saddam Hussein said, 'God is grilling their stomachs in hell.' " Undeterred by the black smoke billowing behind him over central Baghdad, and the sound...

<p>Cable News Network is reporting that no Information Ministry personnel showed up this morning at the Palestine Hotel.</p> <p>This means no 'Baghdad Bob,' but no minders as well.</p> <p>So either they are fading into the midst (most likely) or something really bad is being planned for Palestine Hotel.</p>

<p>Cable News Network reported that of 400 initial tanks in the Iraq army at the outbreak of war, only an estimated 12 remain.</p>

THE BEST OF 'COMICAL ALI' Dubbed Chemical Ali by some British newspapers, the Iraqi Information Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf has become a cult figure for his colourful language and wild claims. With a grinning face and wild gesticulations, he is the man charged with giving the Iraqi side of the story. Here are a selection of some of his quotes: "We will push those crooks, those mercenaries back into the swamp" - Al-Sahhaf makes his debut as the Coalition launches its first bombing raids. On an air attack on Najaf: "What they say about a breakthrough [in Najaf] is completely...

THE CULT OF 'COMICAL ALI' Saddam Hussein may have been keeping a low profile in Baghdad, but one member of the Iraqi regime is basking in the limelight. The country's Information Minister, Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf, has made his own headlines with his smiling denials of the Coalition advance.

ON THE roof of the Palestine Hotel, Mohammed al-Sahhaf was still living in an orbit of his own yesterday and spinning his peculiarly personal view on the progress of the war. The "many hundreds of dead infidel American soldiers" who, on Monday, were having their "stomachs grilled in hell" had been replaced by a new batch who would "be burned in their tanks" if they approached Baghdad. Not that allied troops have been near Baghdad, according to the Iraqi information minister, who yesterday said American troops were in a "hysterical" state. "The invasion is a lie; the infidels were nowhere...

Iraqi Information Minister Uses Insults By SAM F. GHATTAS .c The Associated Press DOHA, Qatar (AP) - The television images of U.S. tanks in Baghdad seemed undeniable, but Saddam Hussein's spokesman denied them anyway - with his usual flair for insult. ``There is no presence of American infidels in the city of Baghdad at all,'' Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf told reporters outside Baghdad's Palestine Hotel on Monday. A day later, when the hotel had just come under U.S. tank fire, the Iraqi information minister had to acknowledge to reporters at the Palestine that U.S. and British columns had targeted the Information...

<p>A black military beret on his head, Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf has become the face and voice of Iraqi defiance.</p> <p>Even as U.S. troops roamed through a presidential complex in the heart of Baghdad on Monday and as tanks rumbled down streets a few hundred meters away, Sahaf was confidently boasting to the world the invaders would be slaughtered.</p>

Here's a selection of what the American Marxist Press is saying about the war: At Intersection, Army's Mission Turns To Chaos (Washington Post, April 8, 2003, Pg. 1) As Army troops barreled into the heart of Baghdad, a unit from the 2nd Brigade of the 3rd Infantry Division was ordered to hold onto a key cloverleaf in the southern part of the city. The mission sounded routine, but it quickly turned into five hours of killing and fiery chaos after an Iraqi rocket-propelled grenade slammed into a U.S. ammunition truck at the intersection. At least two soldiers of the 3rd...

The Ballad of Baghdad Formerly know as: They're Coming to Take Me Away, Ha-haaa! ------------------------------------------I was going to redo this songs lyrics for Baghdad Bob.. but it just fit him to well as is..Play the down load.. Bob is the one singing... Saddam is his love that "ran away".. and the US Army is the one coming to take him away... you can even hear them marching in!------------------------------------------------------ Download the Real Audio version Remember when you ran away And I got on my knees And begged you not to leave Because I'd go berserk? Well. . . You left...

THE MINISTER OF MISINFORMATIONBy Kevin O'SullivanIT'S all over bar the routing. So with all due deference to the tragedy and pain on the field of battle let's look at some of the less important aspects of what Bush and Blair like to call Operation Iraqi Freedom.With brave coalition boys striding through both Basra and now Baghdad there seems little doubt that our troops will soon triumph as Saddam's sad army lurches inexorably towards abject defeat.But war has many sides to it. Away from the field of conflict you can be on the losing side and still be a winner. And...

MOHAMMED Saeed al-Sahhaf’s defiant words were drowned out by rattling small arms fire and tanks rumbling into Baghdad. "No!" the Iraqi information minister shouted to the press conference on the roof of the Palestine Hotel. "There are no tanks ... this is their sick propaganda." At the time, Fox News was showing live footage of United States marines in Saddam Hussein’s bathrooms, but Mr Sahhaf was in denial; the master of smoke and mirrors proved once more that, no matter the evidence, there is always an alternative to reality. Wreathed in smoke yesterday and standing a few hundred yards from...

Even as the fighting raged on the right bank of the Tigris yesterday, a strange gathering formed on the balcony of the Hotel Palestine, home to foreign journalists and their moustachioed monitors from the ministry of information. Wearing his black Ba'ath Party beret pulled down tight over his skull and even more agitated than usual, Mohammed Said al-Sahaf, the thin-lipped information minister, held an impromptu press conference. "The Americans claim their tanks are in the middle of the city. This is a lie," he huffed. "No American tank is in Baghdad. Never. They tried to get back into the city...

Rarely can an enemy regime have supplied us with so hilarious a figure as Saeed al-Sahaf, Iraq's information minister. Yesterday, as American forces advanced through the capital, Mr al-Sahaf told journalists: "There are no American troops in Baghdad. We surrounded them, we killed them, we made them drink poison and taught them a lesson that history will never forget." Mr al-Sahaf's dedication to burying bad news has, over the course of the war, changed him from a suave, John Le Mesurier-like figure into a babbling loon. When coalition troops took Najaf, he insisted that they had been routed. When they...

(2003-04-07) -- Coalition troops now in the heart of Baghdad have discovered a massive cache of the chemical agent lysergic acid diethylamide. The Iraqi Information Ministry has been identified as the site of a huge repository of the substance, commonly called LSD. "After listening to recent statements from the Iraqi Information Minister, we had suspected there were large quantities of LSD in the building," said an unnamed Pentagon spokesman. Information Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf called on the United Nations to address the "immanent humanitarian medical crisis." "There is no way I can do my job effectively without this essential medication,"...