Tony Blair makes Comical Ali seem the voice of
reason
The former Iraqi regime spokesman's boasts seem almost
prophetic. Unlike the prime minister's deluded declarations
By Marina Hyde
02/24/07 "The
Guardian" -- -- If one is to endure a prime
ministerial discourse on Iraq for any length of time these days,
it is necessary - in the name of sanity - to cultivate
strategies of detachment. Destroying another radio solves
nothing, and there may be health risks associated with beginning
one's waking day shouting dementedly at the glottal-stopped
voice drifting over the airwaves. And so it was, listening to
Tony Blair sing the praises of his Iraq adventure on the Today programme on Thursday, that my mind began to wander. If it
wasn't all such a bleeding mess, I thought vaguely, the prime
minister's delusions of success would be almost comical. Comical
... comical ... the word triggered some neural connection. But
what? Gradually but inexorably, the memory of another
charismatic proselytiser for Iraq's rude health began to resolve
itself.
Cast your mind back to the Iraq war as it was originally billed
- the one where we won in three weeks - and which revisionist
historians may just come to classify as a kind of phoney war
curtain-raiser to the prolonged horror that succeeded it. Quite
the most entertaining cameo of the day - even counting Clare
Short's hilarious insistence on staying in the cabinet so she
could oversee the reconstruction effort - was that played by
Saddam's information minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf, who we
came to know as Comical Ali.
Not for him the relentless negativity that so exasperates Tony
Blair where critics of his mission's success are concerned.
"There are only two American tanks in the city," the information
minister would beam beatifically during one of his must-watch
daily briefings in early 2003, surrounded by reporters who would
have been to able to count at least three if they stood on a low
chair. Or recall his declaration as news channels screened
footage of coalition troops patrolling Saddam international
airport: "They are not in control of any airport."
Listening again to Blair's Today interview, it is easy to
imagine his declarations as simply one melody in a discordant
symphony, a series of those beloved soundbites that could be
spliced with contrapuntal news of actual events. "We should be
immensely proud." Crash! A six-hour firefight in Ramadi leaves
12 dead. "What we had to do was rebuild an Iraqi army and police
- we did that." Bang! A US soldier dies and three are injured by
a roadside bomb in Diwaniya. "It is better now that [Saddam] has
gone." Wallop! A car bomb factory is discovered in Baghdad. Just
as it was with his apparent inspiration, Comical Ali, it becomes
ever more difficult to avoid the suspicion that the prime
minister is living in a parallel universe, where success and
failure are merely states of mind.
Of course, as mentioned, the information minister's input in
this historic saga was limited to a cameo. After being captured
by coalition forces, he was almost instantly released, evidently
deemed to have known so little as to be useless. Unlike Mr
Blair, al-Sahaf seems to have become swiftly aware of the limits
of his appeal, and after a few TV appearances, he now lives an
unassuming existence in the United Arab Emirates.
His prime ministerial imitator, however, is assumed to have far
loftier plans, with the North American lecture tour a seeming
inevitability. Enthralled audiences can no doubt expect more
insights such as we gained on Thursday, when the PM appeared to
justify Iraq's sprightly journey in the direction of civil war
with the observation: "You can't absolutely predict every set of
circumstances that comes about." Well quite. You can, however,
have a vague punt on possible outcomes, and if you are over the
age of 15, not involved in a still-unfathomed platonic
infatuation with the US president, and willing to listen to
intelligence you didn't pilfer off the internet, you might
hazard the road ahead was slightly more pitfall-ridden than
seems to have been judged.
But will the time ever come, one wonders idly, when our
revisionist historians reconsider the ravings of Comical Ali?
The idiocy of most of his statements will, admittedly, endure.
Footwear-based supremacy has not been achieved, despite the
much-vaunted boast that the Iraqis would be waiting for the
coalition forces "with shoes". But the smile fades when
recalling other pronouncements. "Do not be hasty because your
disappointment will be huge," the old crazy warned. "You will
reap nothing from this aggressive war, which you launched on
Iraq, except for disgrace and defeat." "We will embroil them,
confuse them, and keep them in the quagmire," he said later,
adding that "they cannot just enter a country of 26 million
people and lay besiege to them! They are the ones who will find
themselves under siege."
There are, of course, rather fewer than 26 million people in
Iraq these days, but even those who dispute the precise extent
of the population depletion might agree that it comes to
something when, in hindsight, several statements by this
preposterous character seem more prophetic than anything spouted
by the British government at the time. Fortunately for Mr Blair,
this kind of cynicism is not voguish in the hotel ballrooms of
North America. There he may expect to be permanently cossetted
against any unwelcome intrusions of reality, and we can only
wish him the speediest of journeys.
marina.hyde@guardian.co.ukClick here
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