A Briefing From the Information Minister

Posted on April 7, 2003    Posted by John Scalzi

“In an apparent show of defiance, Iraq’s Information Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf stood in the streets of Baghdad Monday morning amid a U.S. raid on the capital, issuing denials of coalition advances… He denied certain buildings, such as the al Rashid hotel, were under coalition control. ‘The Americans, they always depend on a method what I call … stupid, silly. All I ask is check yourself. Do not in fact repeat their lies.'” — “Sahaf: U.S. troops will be burned,” CNN, 4/7/2003

Reporter: So, Minister, the US says they’ve taken over another presidential palace.

Sahaf: The Americans infect us all with their putrid filth. Their so-called advances are illusions and shadows. We have gutted them like the fish our noble Saddam hauls out of the river.

Reporter: Well, they’re actually broadcasting from the Palace. See? Look, there’s a US Marine waving in front of a collapsed statue of Saddam right there.

Sahaf: How easily you are taken in by their prevarications. It is obvious that is in fact an image manufactured on a sound stage in Hollywood. Undoubtedly they are filming “Wheel of Fortune” right next door. That gaunt temptress Vanna White is even now turning over a vowel, and some flatulently sedentary housewife from St. Olaf is winning an oven. Listen. You can hear her squealing in joy through the cheap plasterboard of the Marines’ soundstage.

Reporter: Actually, I think that’s the sound of some of the elite Republican Guard surrendering. See, look.

Sahaf: Just because you are taken in by advanced computerized special effects does not mean I have to be. Our Republican Guard would never surrender. Even now, just a single one of our immortal fighters is slaughtering an entire division of American Marines at the airport we let their foolish forces take in order to lure them into a false sense of security. And he’s doing it with nothing more than a ball of twine, some hard cheese, and a kitten. They are like a legion of MacGuyvers, our Republican Guards.

Reporter: Minister, I’m getting a report that Marines have in fact entered this very building.

Sahaf: Why do you repeat their despicable nonsense? The Americans will never enter this building. The citizens of this city would not allow it. They would rise up, yes, even the toddlers and the infants, among whom even the newborns can disembowel one of their vaunted Army Rangers with one swift thrust of his chubby fist.

Reporter: The Marines seem to be carrying you away even as we speak, Minister.

Sahaf: It is all lies. I am stationary. It is the room that is receding.