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Published on July 13, 2007

For all the dramatic build-up to the Iraq war, and the uncertainty surrounding it, the invasion was an anticlimax. Countless Arab hearts broke as Baghdad, once the symbol of Arab resistance, caved in without a fight. No chemical weapons, no biological weapons, not even too much gunfire. Amid this meek surrender, as US soldiers marched into the Iraqi capital, one man - al-Sahhaf - fought on, with his vivid, wild imagination, with his hyperbolic, vitriolic outbursts, but above all with his utter denial of reality.

Savour some of these:

"Their infidels are committing suicide by the hundreds on the gates of Baghdad. Be assured, Baghdad is safe and protected."

"I can say, and I am responsible for what I'm saying, that they have started to commit suicide under the walls of Baghdad. We will encourage them to commit more suicides quickly."

"I triple guarantee you, there are no American soldiers in Baghdad."

"My feelings, as usual, we will slaughter them all."

"They're coming to surrender or be burned in their tanks."

"Today I have visited the whole Baghdad city, no invaders found. You go and see how we have ousted them from this city. They're crying outside and waiting to receive bullets. They will be killed shortly."

"We will drag the drunken junkie nose of Bush through the desert."

Could even war, with all its horrors, have a lighter side to it, one wondered.

When the history of the Iraq war is written, al-Sahhaf is assured a cameo presence.

Even US President George W Bush, who was a victim of al-Sahhaf's vitriol - "that insane dwarf Bush" - admitted to being enamoured by the Iraqi's slapstick performance. "He's my man, he was great," Bush said in an interview with NBC. "He was a classic."

His fans - not Iraqis - launched websites recording his outbursts and his face and quotes were flaunted on mugs and T-shirts.

As al-Sahhaf slugged on, the world sat back and laughed at him.

The Iraqi information minister was not considered important enough to make it to the deck of cards of wanted regime members issued by Washington (although the king of hearts or joker could have been light-hearted options). Al-Sahhaf, a Shi'ite, melted away with the rest of the regime, but surrendered to the occupation forces after being in hiding for three months. But the Iraqi information minister had so little information on the regime he served that he was deemed innocent and allowed to seek exile in the United Arab Emirates.

Four years and four months since the invasion of Iraq, as one juxtaposes the remarks that have come out of Washington in these years, they have an al-Sahhaf-like quality about them.

 November 15, 2002 - Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defence: "The idea that it's going to be a long, long battle of some kind I think is belied by the fact of what happened in 1990. Five days or five weeks or five months, but it certainly isn't going to last any longer than that."

March 16, 2003 - Dick Cheney: "My belief is we will, in fact, be greeted as liberators ... I think it will go relatively quickly ... [in] weeks rather than months."

July 2, 2003 - George W Bush: "There are some who feel like - that the conditions are such that they can attack us there. My answer is, bring 'em on! We've got the force necessary to deal with the security situation."

June 29, 2005 - Bush: "I am absolutely confident that we made the right decision. And not only that, I'm absolutely confident that the actions we took in Iraq are influencing reformers and freedom lovers in the greater Middle East. And I believe that you're going to see the rise of democracy in many countries in the broader Middle East, which will lay the foundation for peace."

June 29, 2005 - Cheney: "I think they're in the last throes, if you will, of the insurgency."

Since the invasion, we know that close to 4,000 members of the occupation forces have perished. But no one has a count of how many Iraqi lives have been lost in the daily violence. The estimates vary from 60,000 to 600,000. It would be a fair estimate to say that more people have died since the invasion than Saddam's regime killed in 20 years. Dictatorship and democracy have both exacted a heavy price from Iraqis.

But the situation is only getting more complicated. At the outset, it was primarily an issue of demography, territory and resources and how to balance the majority Shi'ites with the minority Sunnis and Kurds. In this potent mix, we now have al-Qaeda. The conflagration has now acquired so many hues that it's difficult to imagine an end-game.

The Iraqi government, obviously with the blessing of the occupation forces, is recruiting Sunni militias - possibly former Baathists - to fight al-Qaeda, which is itself preoccupied with decimating the Shi'ites and the foreign forces. In addition there are Shi'ite militias, apparently with the blessing and backing of Iran, fighting Sunni militias and the foreign forces.

Iraq is in the kind of situation Lebanon faced in the 1980s, when it was not necessary to have a cause to fight for, but it was important to fight.

Amid all the gibberish, some of al-Sahhaf's utterances in 2003 stand out as prophetic although, coming from him then, it could have just been wishful thinking:

"Washington has thrown their soldiers on the fire."

"We will embroil them, confuse them and keep them in the quagmire."

"Do not be hasty because your disappointment will be huge. You will reap nothing from this aggressive war, which you launched on Iraq, except disgrace and defeat."

"Bush knows that he is standing in quicksand when it comes to his baseless talk on Iraq."

"They are deceiving their soldiers and their officers that aggressing against Iraq and invading Iraq will be a picnic. This is a stupid lie they are telling their soldiers. What they are facing is a definite death."

The quagmire and quicksand al-Sahhaf warned of has come true. Now ensconced in the comfort of his dwelling in the UAE, probably watching images of the disaster and tragedy that Iraq has become, it is possible to imagine al-Sahhaf turning around with an "I-told-you-so" air and cocking a snook at his detractors.

Undoubtedly al-Sahhaf is having the last laugh. But this time, even al-Sahhaf the incorrigible sound-bite warrior would have to admit that the Iraqi insurgency has surpassed our wildest imaginations - even his.

Kumar Krishnan

The Nation