Not to sound like a broken record, but..."He's dead, Jim."

Perhaps Osama should take this moment to fax a statement to Al Jezeera

JB, I was going to say the same thing! LOL!

It's time to take over the airwaves and spread the word that he's dead to the Iraqis.

Oh, come on. Now they aren't even trying. What fun is that? Maybe all of the videotape editors have fled the city.

I bet the Dis-information Minister thinks he's in charge now....

Presumably all round the Arab world, as well as in Iraq, people will have been on standby for Saddam's brave statement.

If that lame effort was bravery, I'm a Frenchman.

Sean-- He might be!

I've noticed that just about any video on American TV has a time/date stamp on it, but none of the Iraqi ones do. How hard would it be for them to forge a time/date stamp?

Like y'all said, they aren't even trying anymore.

How does one say 'April Fool' in Arabic?

Hmmm. So far the only thing that Iraqi TV has proved is that Peter Arnett is alive!

Wall street liked the performance!

Bri, you would need the actual tape for the time code, but it may not nessasarily have a time/date code. Professional decks just run a linear time code usually.

Was it in color this time? Did Al Sahhaf speak in broken English or Arabic? Was Saddam's favorite bodyguard behind Sahhaf? Goofy people, these Iraqis.

What I meant was (and it didn't come across - sorry) why can't they just take whatever tape they planned to run anywah (Saddam having tea, Saddam playing Playstation, Saddam meeting with his landscape architect, whatever) and then superimpose a time code so it looks like it was recorded yesterday?

That would give all of us armchair journalists something new to discuss, the Pentagon something new to yell about, etc.

I guess the Iraqis aren't looking for that type of thing. One of the Fox guys was talking with the Iraqi UN embassador and his first on air question was "Is Saddam dead or alive" and the guy laughed, then said "He is alive. I saw him on television yesterday" Talk about your faith in government!

BuuuHaHaHaHHaHA!

They actually would have been better off doing nothing! Even to a Saddam loyalist, this should seem odd, desperate, or both. Surely they are beginning to catch on to the fact that they haven't seen their illustrious leader since 20 March.
I think he's history.
Condolences all 'round.
Not.

These attempts are so bad that they are actually good. While everyone is convinced he is dead, it is easier for him to be alive. Can you say "Slip out the back, Jack?"

Is there a precedent in history, of a country being ruled by a dead man in this fashion?

This has to have happened before, anybody?

HUGE HUGE mistake on the part of the non leadership of Iraq.

Or

One sure fire way for the leftovers to communicate that indeed the big bad wolf is dead dead dead to the surviving underlings.

What a disappointment. At least UBL produced some tape recordings for his endearing fans.

"Is there a precedent in history, of a country being ruled by a dead man in this fashion?"

Calvin Coolidge?

APRIL FOOLS!!!! I guess it would be kind of hard to address his people from a six foot hole in the ground, or should I say a smoking hole contributed by the United States.

Translated text of Saddam's letter:

"I'm not dead.

"I'm getting better. I think I'll go for a walk.

"I feel happy. I feel happy."

Like Osama, Saddam is either paste for the bugs, too comatose to even blink, or very very scared of American technology.

90% chance dead.
9% chance hurt and almost dead.
1% chance alive and trying to bait coalition into saying "we're quite sure he's dead" in order to claim one final P.R. coup before lights out.

The production facilities could have been taken out and the tape library bombed. No more fake tapes. Just speculation.

Could taking out the Iraqi regime be as simple as taking out the Information Minister?

Well...that was a non-event. He's DEAD! Has this happened before...can you say "Afghanistan"?

Really, what gullible people the Arabs are; they'd rather be tyrranized by a dead man than admit there might be a better way to live and admit that he is dead. They're beyond stupid or gullible--they're wilfully wrongheaded. Perhaps we should have left them to their fate.

That said, this was is not for them, it's for us. This man, Saddam, and his bunch of goons wasn't content to tyrranize their own people anymore, he's been exporting his terrorism throughout the world--first the Middle East and the West Bank and Gaza and I strongly suspect he and his cohorts in Awnsar al-Islam and Al-Qaeda have exported anthrax attacks and maybe Oklahoma City to the West. He may have helped fund 9-11. It would take some auditors a few months to track the money trail but it wouldn't surprise me. Good riddance!

Perhaps the Information Minister is really in charge, not Saddam, and has been all along?

I think I saw that on a movie once.

Calvin Coolidge?

He died and his death was covered up for a time? I'm not familiar with that part of history.

There has to be a king in history which died and his court or somebody kept that secret for a while. There has to be some precedent for this.

Elizabeth -- they're not stupid, they're scared. Last time they rose up against Saddam, they were slaughtered.

Just a joke, ElCapitanAmerica. "Silent Cal", and all that.

Does anyone know the last date of a verifiable sighting of Saddam Hussein?

Think of Saddam & Sons as an organized crime family. Just because someone may have clipped the boss doesn't mean that the family breaks up.

Saddam's leutenants (sp?) and foot soldiers have a vested interest in propping up the regime even if Saddam & Sons are dead or seriously wounded.

C'mon...the Iraqi regime is "Week-end at Bernie's". After 12 days someone is starting to really smell bad.

Calvin Coollidge is dead? Can't be, I saw him on tv the other night.

Woodrow Wilson was totally incapacitated by strokes for the last year or two of his term. The US was more or less run by his wife during that time.

"Is there a precedent in history, of a country being ruled by a dead man in this fashion?"

General Francisco Franco y Bahamonde is still dead.

El Capitan,

Shih Huang Ti, the first emperor of the Chin dynasty, was dead for a couple of months before the fact was generally known. He was traveling through the provinces when he kicked it, and the ministers on hand kept his death secret (even keeping a wagonload of fish near the emperor's closed coach to cover the decomposing monarch's odor!) while they schemed with one of the emperor's sons so they could retain power...

Keep in mind that we can't completely trust any photos of Saddam posing with a "recent" newspaper or anything like that as long as the evidence included is from a state-run or state-abused news source.

Brian;

THANKS!!! That's exactly what I was looking for!

Heh. EM pulse bomb hit the Iraqi TV building last week. The Ultimate Bulk Eraser.

I'd give equal weight to the possibility that he and his family are living the life in [insert obvious Middle Eastern country here] and "phoning in" instructions to the troops.

'course, since the phones aren't working all that well he's likely having a few problems...

He's dead. What I wonder is just how long the US will wait before directly claiming he's dead and taunting him to show himself. They came close recently, and I think that'll ramp up.

I think the only way anyone's going to be hearing from Saddam and Sons (whom he seems to have named in Pig-Latin - sound it out) or Osama Pig-Laden is if they attend a seance.

Orion

Isn't Saddam always on via tape?

My guess is that he is in a bunker. He was clearly alive after the first bombing which was the biggest shot at getting him so far.

He is either DEAD or seriously F'd up. Let's get real folks.

Sorry
- Saddam made no live appearences during the first gulf war. he also made very very few taped announcements over those months and almost always used surrogates
- Iraqi TV did not announce that Saddam would make this announcement himself. The rport saying he would is false.

Sounds like we know he is alive and are trying to smoke him out, and sow seeds of doubt amoung Iraqis and others.

good for US, but he is alive.

I think we should subscribe to the Woodrow Wilson theory. That way every time the Information Minister steps up to the microphone we can say "Hey, there's Mo pulling a Woody!"

Saddam is CLEARLY alive and well, I saw him swimming and cavorting with some of his closest goons just the other day on the Beeb, er, Iraqi TV.

He has simply chosen this time to take a well earned and deserved vacation.

As for appearing on TV with a current newspaper to prove he's alive, I think the best they can muster now is a 2x2 picture of him in the Obits in section E of IraqToday.

I can't wait to read that obit... can u imagine?

I'm waiting for them to use one of Conan O'Brien's tapes of Saddam talking. Even that would be more convincing. ;)