Ridiculously persistent bluster by Iraq's now deposed information minister provoked laughter in the US.
Even as coalition tanks rolled into Baghdad, Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf remained defiant.
"They are going to surrender," he declared. "They are going to surrender or be burned in their tanks."
On Apr. 9, when cheering Iraqis taunted the fallen 40-ft statue of Saddam Hussein in the center of Baghdad, Saeed was nowhere to be found.
Funny? Sure. But a sobering message lies beneath the comic obstinacy.
What does an Iraqi information minister do? Until Apr. 9, he administered information on behalf of a murderous tyrant. What do information ministers do in any unrepresentative government? They manipulate information as a tool of autocracy.
Yes, press officials in democratic governments dispense information in ways helpful to official agendas.
But press officials and their principals pay a price when they get caught lying, which some of them sometimes do. They lose credibility, a measure of which is essential to political success in elective systems.
For information ministers in unelected governments, lying is less risky. For many, it's half the job. The other half is suppressing information in conflict with official wishes. People subject to unrepresentative governments know this. It's why suspicion dominates what has become known as the Arab street.
Imagine the Baghdad citizen while presidential palaces are blowing up and foreign troops are rumored to be advancing from the south. How does this person respond when the information minister appears on state-run television to proclaim, "All is under control"?
Saeed's lying. What else is new?
Then, on Apr. 10, US President George W. Bush appears instead of Saeed to declare that Saddam's gone and everything will be all right. How does the Baghdad citizen respond to that?
How does the Arab street respond to American and British assurance that this isn't really a war against Arabs and a grab for oil? Iraqis won't believe everything is all right until their country really is all right—and maybe not then.
The Arab street won't believe it wasn't a war of aggression until non-Arab soldiers leave Iraq. And probably not then.
(Online Apr. 11, 2003; author's e-mail: [email protected])
