Out into the wilderness

While Baathist Iraq may have disappeared for good thanks to the military might of the Americans, members of the old regime are likely to linger on for quite some time. As they began to be rounded up by the U.S. civilian administration now ruling Baghdad, one person stood out - Mohammad Saeed Al Sahhaf, Iraq's former Information Minister.

After going into hiding when Baghdad fell to the U.S. forces on April 9, he has been trying his best to be "captured" by the Americans. They, in turn, say he is a free man because he is not on their "pack of cards" of the 55 most wanted in Iraq.

But having been a prominent member of a "plucked out" and some say hated regime, he now appears to be terrified of walking the streets of Baghdad or showing his face in public in fear of being "mobbed" or even lynched!

Away from his aunt's home, that has become the jail of his own choosing, Sahhaf has become a global phenomenon, a superstar, someone to be listened to, remembered, and even humorously admired.

Away from the dictatorial, totalitarian and oppressive regime which he is accused of belonging to for the last 35 years - since the Baathists came to rule Iraq in 1968 - Sahhaf cut through the cultural stereotypes and, in a way, became a friend of the people.

His expressive style, diction, invented and innovative words gained him a large following at least in the Arab world. But it doesn't stop there. U.S. President George W. Bush used to break away from his meetings just to listen to Sahhaf's daily briefings.

Many would say it's a shame that Sahhaf's rise to "global" fame came at a time when he was leaving office or, more correctly, was "booted out of office". Regardless, until last month, he was a loyal Baathist, a mouthpiece of the regime. Everything and anything had to come through the Iraqi Minister of Information and hence Sahhaf, who was given the portfolio in 2001.

Although much is being written about him these days in the local, regional and international press, only a few are scratching the surface or going beyond the "news" to examine the real character of the man who joined the party in the early 1960s and slowly rose through the ranks.

However, and up until recently, nobody really knew Sahhaf and his sarcastic way of speaking. His manner had always been official, circumspect and business-like.

This is perhaps because under a one-party state like Iraq very few got their names through the international press door except, of course, its former leader, Saddam Hussain.

Superficially, the international media suggested Iraq was Saddam Hussain and Saddam Hussain was Iraq, and nobody else would do! And every media maker rode the bandwagon.

People like Tariq Aziz, Iraq's former Deputy Prime Minister, who came into the international spotlight during the second Gulf War as Foreign Minister when Iraq invaded Kuwait, was well-known. In fact, people then saw in Aziz a resemblance to the Henry Kissinger of the early 1970s - cool, dexterous, tough-minded and even conniving.

Sahhaf, on the other hand, appeared to have languished in the doldrums after entering government service in 1968, occupying junior posts but never anything top-notch until the 1990s. Although he initially studied journalism, he went on to teach English.

A chance meeting with Saddam around 1962 signalled a change in fortune as Saddam persuaded him to enter the Baath party and become an activist. He continued to teach English at the same time. After the "July Revolution", effectively a coup d'etat, he headed Iraqi radio and television.

It is said he was not liked by the staff there because of his abrasive manner. But that seemed to do him no harm, for soon after that, he joined the diplomatic service, serving as ambassador to Burma, Sweden and lastly as Iraq's Ambassador to the United Nations. That was in the 1970s and 1980s.

In 1992, he took over from Tariq Aziz and became Iraq's Foreign Minister, trying to grapple with the sanctions imposed on Iraq in the summer of 1991 after its invasion of Kuwait, and dealing with the United Nations.

This was a difficult time for Iraq as the sanctions had begun to bite. But it was also a period of international negotiations over UN inspectors, hunting for weapons of mass destruction and the institution of the oil-for-food programme in 1996 that allowed Baghdad to export limited oil in return for basic food aid.

Sahhaf laboured on until 2001, when he was moved to the Information Ministry. Contrary to what is implied above about his "chummy" relationship with Saddam, many observers say he was never close to the inner circle of the regime.

Sahhaf was a Shia Muslim from the town of Karbala, south of Baghdad, while most of the ministers came from Saddam's home town of Tikrit. In addition, Saddam's government was a Sunni-dominated one, except for Tariq Aziz who was a Christian.

For the Arab world, Sahhaf came to mean one thing, and for the rest of the globe something else altogether, a fascination with a character that appeared every day on international television, managing to override national boundaries and go transnational - a figure to be capitalised on.

In the Arab world, Sahhaf's daily press conferences managed to give a ray of hope to the Arab man in the street who long sensed the war on Iraq was a no-win situation and that it was only a matter of time before the country lost abysmally. Nevertheless, his press briefings were watched diligently all over the Arab world.

Helpless in the face of American might and probably feeling a sense of guilt, Sahhaf verbally turned the tables round, telling the Arab masses what they wanted to hear, that Iraq was winning and the Americans were getting a bloody nose.

Under a hail of missiles, the clean-shaven, immaculately attired Sahhaf held his daily briefings using his eloquence in Arabic to attack what become a much talked about word, "ulouj", to describe the Americans. Uloug roughly meant "louts" according to one magazine. However, the Arabic Al Mawrid dictionary gives its meaning as "infidel", "unbeliever" and "atheist".

Al Moujem Al Waseet, another Arabic dictionary, defines ulouj as someone "dry", "extremist", "zebra", "the fat one", "the strong" and even "tiny ants".

It was the phraseology he used on a daily basis that lifted the Arab world, regardless of whether or not it was true. Internet web sites and newspaper articles are full of these phrases; in fact, they have become almost cliche used in material about Sahhaf.

But Sahhaf's humour lies in the Arabic he uses and the way he says things. Although many of these phrases have been translated into English, some of them lose out in the translation, even bordering on the ridiculous, unable to carry the same meaning, flavour, colour or even the spiritual or cultural sense. A few examples will suffice to illustrate the point.

"Iraqis have not received Americans with flowers, but with bullets and shoes", "The English are not worth an old boot", "I speak better English than the villain Bush", "They are all like a snake and we are going to cut it in pieces", "We will control the situation, they are in a state of hysteria".

Most of these phrases can only be understood and appreciated by the Arabs. Translat