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Thursday, April 17, 2003
Copyright © Las Vegas Mercury

Basement Files: What he said

If the first three weeks of the war on Iraq produced a media star, it was Iraq's Minister of Information, Mohammed Said Sahaf. Sahaf's immense popularity among Arabs and his relentlessly upbeat spin of bleak situations have not been lost on the Bush administration. Last Monday, in an unexpected purge, Sahaf was named as White House Press Secretary to replace the deposed Ari Fleischer.

SAHAF: I would like to read a statement and then I will take your questions. The administration would like to tender its appreciation to my predecessor, Ari Fleischer, for his loyal and dedicated service to this office. This, of course, was before he became a coward and ran from the truth as a schoolgirl runs from mice. Now we marvel at his ineffectual weakness, his unmanly stammering and his soft, wet eyes. He will be missed as would a pernicious rash, with relief and thanks to a merciful God. All right, I will take your questions.

THOMAS: Yes, Helen Thomas, Associated Press.

SAHAF: Did I point at you?

THOMAS: Well, no, but...

SAHAF: Then sit down, you shrieking Hecate.

THOMAS: Sir, it's customary that I ask the first question.

SAHAF: But you are a woman. And old.

THOMAS: Sir...

SAHAF: And offensive to behold. Proud men would rather pluck their eyes than look upon you. I would stumble forever in the Stygian blackness of the Al-Khafar caves before I would glance but once in your...

THOMAS: Sir, what would the administration say to the grief-stricken parents of the Iraqi children maimed by American bombs?

SAHAF: No children have been maimed. I can assure you.

THOMAS: Sir, the pictures of wounded Iraqi children have been broadcast worldwide. Many are missing arms and legs.

SAHAF: Well, their arms have grown back and today they play in sun-dappled meadows.

THOMAS: Their arms have grown back?

SAHAF: Yes, like newts. It is all quite painless, I assure you. In fact, the arms grow back stronger.

THOMAS: Mohammed, please...

SAHAF: Look, it is the genius of the American smart bomb. So learned is modern ordnance that it is incapable of wounding the innocent. And should the unthinkable happen, the smart bomb, calling upon its vast stores of erudition, regenerates the damaged tissue. I'm frankly astonished that you haven't kept up with the literature.

HALLORAN: Sir, are you saying there were no civilian deaths due to American bombing?

SAHAF: You people are like kenneled dogs. The barking of one is soon answered with the barking of all.

COOPER: What does that mean, sir?

SAHAF: It means that if the barking does not soon stop, you will be led to the tiny room where oxygen is sucked from your barking lungs. And it is not a pleasant way to go, I can assure you.

HALLORAN: Okay, but what about the civilians killed by coalition bombing?

SAHAF: Look, no civilians were killed. I don't know where you get this stuff.

HALLORAN: Sir, not a week ago, you yourself, speaking as Iraqi Minister of Information, claimed that 2,000 innocent Iraqis had died as a result of, quoting here, the unholy aggression of America's savage bloodlust. End quote.

SAHAF: Wait. I said that? Because, to be honest, that's not ringing a bell. Seriously, that doesn't even sound like me. I mean, the absurd hyperbole of it all ... who talks like this? Only a madman, or one prone to drink.

COOPER: Sir, how can the administration explain our failure, to date, to find any of the weapons of mass destruction that were our purported reason for going to war?

SAHAF: Ah, but we have, my little fountain of lies. As of yesterday, we've uncovered more than 28,000 depleted uranium shells, highly radioactive and clearly banned by UN resolution, hidden in the armor belts of Iraqi tanks, concealed in the fuselages of Iraqi aircraft and embedded in the bodywork and upholstery of countless jeeps and vehicles.

COOPER: But, sir...

SAHAF: Wait! And for those who doubt Saddam Hussein's bottomless capacity for evil, it must be reported that we found as many as 4,000 of these shells secreted in the chest cavities of Iraqi soldiers and civilians. This kind of disdain for human life, for the most basic rules of gentlemanly warfare, is what we were up against.

COOPER: Sir, weren't those depleted uranium shells fired by US and coalition forces?

SAHAF: What is your name, jackal?

COOPER: Umm, Chris Cooper, Sacramento Bee.

SAHAF: Tell me, Chris...do you ever, in the quiet moments before sleep comes, wonder how you would stand up to torture?

COOPER: Well, yeah, I guess I've wondered.

SAHAF: Of course you have. All cowards do. You would not fare well, my friend. All right, you there, in the hideous tie.

TOMKINS: Yes, Eric Tomkins, Dallas Morning News. Sir, do you know if the White House's annual Easter egg hunt will go on as scheduled despite the war crisis?

SAHAF: Look, for the last time, all of the eggs were discovered and destroyed by last year's inspectors. They were given total and unhindered access to the White House lawn. There is nothing else to find.

TOMKINS: But isn't it expected that you would hide more this year?

SAHAF: Where would we hide such things? These are brightly colored eggs we're talking about.

TOMKINS: Is it true that White House staffers have been threatened if they divulge the hiding places of these eggs?

SAHAF: Please, we are in the realm of fantasy now.

TOMKINS: So children will be allowed to hunt for Easter eggs?

SAHAF: Let them come. Let the accursed basket-bearing mercenaries be thrown onto the fire of their own greedy miscalculations. Soon, they will beg for merciful death at the gates of Hell.