14 April 2003, updated 16 April 2003 and 2 July 2003

Mohammed Saeed al-Sayyaf's finest hour before the world's media.

Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf, Iraq's Minister for Information, achieved a kind of stardom for his buffoonish denials of coalition advances, and his bloodthirsty claims of Iraqi victories.

Despite rumours that he may have hanged himself as American tanks tore through Baghdad, Al-Sahhaf has turned up alive and well in Iraq. Apparently he is now hoping to be granted political asylum in the UK. You might think the only sort of asylum he should be granted is the lunatic asylum. Sadly, he was always horribly sane, if pathetic.

Al-Sahhaf dedicated his whole life to maintaining Saddam in power; his interference in journalistic freedom was so extreme that only CNN agreed to his terms of operation (Eason Jordan, Newsgathering President of CNN, now admits to distorting CNN's coverage in order to maintain their bureau in Baghdad when other news organisations had been kicked out or left in disgust).

Collected here are some of his more hilariously delusional statements from during the war. Before you start reading, spare a thought for the Iraqi people who had to listen to this sort of nonsense for 25 years of Saddam's regime. And for the millions of others around the world still living under one-party states, dictatorships, violent thocracies and kleptocracies who employ clowns like Mohammed Saeed Al-Sahhaf to pump out misinformation.

As for Al-Sahhaf's future career? Well, at some point in the not-too-distant future there may be a vacancy in Alastair Campbell's office...

Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf may come across as a buffoon, but don't forget that this clown dedicated his entire working life to keeping a murderous regime in power.

• "There are no American infidels in Baghdad. Never!"
• "My feelings - as usual - we will slaughter them all."
• "Our initial assessment is that they will all die."
• "I blame Al-Jazeera - they are marketing for the Americans!"
• "God will roast their stomachs in hell at the hands of Iraqis."
• "We have destroyed 2 tanks, fighter planes, 2 helicopters and their shovels. We have driven them back."
• "They are coming to surrender or be burned in their tanks."
• "No I am not scared and neither should you be!"
• "We are not afraid of the Americans. Allah has condemned them. They are stupid. They are stupid... and they are condemned."
• "We have them surrounded in their tanks"
• "The American press is all about lies! All they tell is lies, lies and more lies!"
• "Lying is forbidden in Iraq. President Saddam Hussein will tolerate nothing but truthfulness as he is a man of great honor and integrity. Everyone is encouraged to speak freely of the truths evidenced in their eyes and hearts."
• "Let the American infidels bask in their illusion... because we will behead you all"
• "I triple guarantee you, there are no American soldiers in Baghdad."
• "[Britain] is not worth an old shoe."
• "[US troops] are most welcome. We will butcher them."
• "We will welcome them with bullets and shoes."
• "We are in control. They are in a state of hysteria. Losers, they think that by killing civilians and trying to distort the feelings of the people they will win. I think they will not win, those bastards."
• "We have placed them in a quagmire from which they can never emerge except dead."
• "I speak better English than this villain Bush."
• "These cowards have no morals. They have no shame about lying."
• "They're not even [within] 100 miles [of Baghdad]. They are not in any place. They hold no place in Iraq. This is an illusion... they are trying to sell to the others an illusion."
• "[Coalition commanders] want to tell taxpayers and the domestic public to keep them deceived. We will embroil them, confuse them and keep them in the quagmire. They have begun to tell more lies so that they might continue with the perpetration of their crimes. May they be accursed."

  Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf on his finest lip-curling form. Millions around the world wanted to believe him - and not just in Paris.

• "We will kill them all... most of them."
• "They are like a snake and we are going to cut it in pieces."
• "They do not even have control over themselves! Do not believe them!"
• "They are nowhere near the airport... they are lost in the desert... they can not read a compass... they are retarded."
• "Faltering forces of infidels cannot just enter a country of 26 million people and lay besiege to them! They are the ones who will find themselves under siege. Therefore, in reality whatever this miserable Rumsfeld has been saying, he was talking about his own forces. Now even the American command is under siege."
• "They tried to bring a small number of tanks and personnel carriers in through al-Durah but they were surrounded and most of the infidels had their throats cut."
• "Our estimates are that none of them will come out alive unless they surrender to us quickly."
• "We made them drink poison last night and Saddam Hussein's soldiers and his great forces gave the Americans a lesson which will not be forgotten by history. Truly."
• "On this occasion, I am not going to mention the number of the infidels who were killed and the number of destroyed vehicles. The operation continues."
• "We're giving them a real lesson today. Heavy doesn't accurately describe the level of casualties we have inflicted."
• "I can say, and I am responsible for what I am saying, that they have started to commit suicide under the walls of Baghdad. We will encourage them to commit more suicides quickly."
• "Their infidels are committing suicide by the hundreds on the gates of Baghdad. Be assured, Baghdad is safe, protected."
• "No! We have retaken the airport! There are no Americans there! I will take you there and show you! In one hour!"
• "We defeated them yesterday. God willing, I will provide you with more information. I swear by God, I swear by God, those who are staying in Washington and London have thrown these mercenaries in a crematorium."
• "Please, please! The Americans are relying on what I called yesterday a desperate and stupid method."
• "They will be burnt. We are going to tackle them."
• "We blocked them inside the city. Their rear is blocked."
• "Desperate Americans."
• "Today we slaughtered them in the airport. They are out of Saddam International Airport. The force that was in the airport, this force was destroyed."
• "They are trying to fool you. They are showing any old pictures of buildings. They even went into the VIP section of the airport, just because Saddam Hussein may have sat in such and such a chair or slept in such and such a bed."
• "We went into the airport and crushed them, we cleaned the whooooole place out! They were slaughtered."
• "Yes, the american troops have advanced further. This will only make it easier for us to defeat them."
• "Their casualties and bodies are many."
• "Those [soldiers surrendering] are not Iraqi soldiers at all. Where did they bring them from?"
• "Just look carefully, I only want you to look carefully. Do not repeat the lies of liars. Do not become like them. Once again, I blame al-Jazeera before it ascertains what takes place. Please, make sure of what you say and do not play such a role."
• "You can go and visit those places. Nothing there, nothing at all. There are Iraqi checkpoints. Everything is okay."
• "This boa, the American columns, are being besieged between Basra and other towns north, west, south and west of Basra....Now even the American command is under siege. We are hitting it from the north, east, south and west. We chase them here and they chase us there."
• "By God, I think this is rather very unlikely. This is merely a prattle. The fact is that as soon as they reach Baghdad gates, we will besiege them and slaughter them. Wherever they go they will find themselves encircled."
• "Listen, this explosion does not frighten us any longer. The cruise missiles do not frighten anyone. We are catching them like fish in a river. I mean here that over the past two days we managed to shoot down 196 missiles before they hit their target."
• "Blair... is accusing us of executing British soldiers. We want to tell him that we have not executed anybody. They are either killed in battle, most of them get killed because they are cowards anyway, the rest they just get captured."
• "They fled. The American louts fled. Indeed, concerning the fighting waged by the heroes of the Arab Socialist Baath Party yesterday, one amazing thing really is the cowardice of the American soldiers. we had not anticipated this."
• "The forces of American colonialism began to drop containers that produce a sound explosion, a very huge sound. I remind you that they said that their strategy is based on shock and awe. Those failed ones manufactured a type of container that has an explosive substance, which they drop. They cause a very huge explosion in terms of sound, as if the universe was shaken. After a while, you go out and you don't find anything. You find some nails, screws, pieces of metal, but the important thing here is the sound. Those failed ones think that through the huge sound explosion, people would be shocked and consequently would collapse and be defeated. What happened? The contrary. The fighters, the masses, the heroic sons of the Iraqi tribes, discovered this game. They will turn it against the American louts so as to shock them. Wait for surprises, God willing, to see how the US game will fail."
• "The shock has backfired on them. They are shocked because of what they have seen. No one received them with roses. They were received with bombs, shoes and bullets. Now, the game has been exposed. Awe will backfire on them. This is the boa snake. We will extend it further and cut it the appropriate way."
• "It has been rumored that we have fired scud missiles into Kuwait. I am here now to tell you, we do not have any scud missiles and I don't know why they were fired into Kuwait."
• "As for the mercenaries who advanced to the perimeters of Saddam International Airport, I would like to remind you of something. I will mention something that will make the picture clear for you and help you to understand what took place at Saddam International Airport. Most of you probably saw the American movie "Wag the Dog". I hope you remember it. Some of their acts that took place at dawn yesterday and today are similar to what happened in "Wag the Dog". If we succeed in keeping them isolated on that island, and we are determined to do so, we might let them taste a second mini Dien Bien Phu tonight. The European journalists remember it well. Our estimates are that none of them will come out alive unless they surrender to us quickly. They are completely surrounded now. This morning, the number of armoured personnel carriers that were destroyed, along with their occupants, is eight. The number of the tanks destroyed is 11."
• "Tonight, we will do something unconventional against them. This means: not by the military. We will do something that I believe will become a pretty example for those mercenaries. I would not be giving out a secret when I say that action in the dark against such mercenaries is effective, not through the action of armies. I say that dropping down those mercenaries in a surprise fashion at Saddam Airport without accurate calculations is largely meant for showing things. It's a showy operation. It is a kind of surprise muscle flexing to the world to show it that the shock and awe operation is indeed successful. May they be accursed. Through this operation they sent a number of their villains and mercenaries to be butchered. Again, and according to my early estimates, unless the remaining part of their soldiers surrender, the chance for their survival is very slim. The surprising thing is that after they threw their soldiers into a place where they are not aware of the real results, the villainous Americans, like Powell and the others, sat in Europe to discuss how to divide Iraq as spoils after the war. Ha-ha-ha. This means what's post-war. The post-war will be the same current Iraq under the leadership of President Saddam Hussein."
• "We will pursue them as war criminals."
• After Iraq aborts the invasion that is being carried out by the American and British villains, the USA will no longer be a superpower. Its deterioration will be rapid. I say to those villains who are meeting in Europe, thinking of launching psychological war and brainwashing: wait. Do not be hasty because your disappointment will be huge. You will reap nothing from this aggressive war, which you launched on Iraq, except for disgrace and defeat. Iraq will continue to exist. Its civilization is 10,000 years old. It will not be changed by villains like the US and British villains."
• "W. Bush, this man is a war criminal, and we will see that he is brought to trial."
• "I think the British nation has never been faced with a tragedy like this fellow [Tony Blair]."
• "The United Nations [is] a place for prostitution under the feet of Americans."
• "They are sick in their minds. They say they brought 65 tanks into center of city. I say to you this talk is not true. This is part of their sick mind."
• "We have destroyed 50 tanks today. That 5-oh tanks"
• "They are superpower of villains. They are superpower of Al Capone."
• "Americans are wild donkeys"
• "I can assure you that those villains will recognize, will discover in appropriate time in the future how stupid they are and how they are pretending things which have never taken place."
• "Iraqi fighters in Umm Qasr are giving the hordes of American and Brtish mercenaries the taste of definite death. We have drawn them into a quagmire and they will never get out of it."
• "What they say about a breakthrough [in Najaf] is completely an illusion. They are sending their warplanes to fly very low in order to have vibrations on these sacred places... they are trying to crack the buildings by flying low over them."
• "We have crushed the whole force which dared to venture there. Now they're outside the wall and the heroic Republican Guard is now in control of the whole area. So where are those villainous louts, those mercenaries?"
• "Their forces committed suicide by the hundreds.... The battle is very fierce and God made us victorious. The fighting continues."
• "Yesterday, we slaughtered them and we will continue to slaughter them."
• "They think we are retarded - they are retarded."
• "I think this is very laughable for a Superpower to be so cheap to drop [leaflets] inside Iraq. Such poor things, and they are printed in Kuwait!"
• "We're going to drag the drunken junkie nose of Bush through Iraq's desert, him and his follower dog Blair...There are 26 million Saddams in Iraq."
• "We will push those crooks, those mercenaries back into the swamp."
• "When we were making the law, when we were writing the literature and the mathematics, the grandfathers of Blair and little Bush were scratching around in caves."
• "They will come and we will slap them about the head and then kick them on their backsides when they leave."
• "[George W Bush] is the leader of the international criminal gang of bastards... the insane little dwarf Bush."
• About Bush and Rumsfeld: "Those only deserve to be hit with shoes."
• "Bush is a very stupid man. The American people are not stupid, they are very clever. I can't understand how such clever people came to elect such a stupid President."

• Mohammed Saeed al Sahhaf, Iraqi Minister of Information, whose clownish performances earned him the nickname Comical Ali (not to be confused with Chemical Ali).

  "Who is this dog Franks in Qatar?"
• "Whenever we attack, they retreat. When we pound them with missiles and heavy artillery, they retreat even deeper. But when we stopped pounding, they pushed to the airport for propaganda purposes."
• "Our armed forces, according to their tactics, are leaving the way open... the capital, especially the commandos, are getting ready to wipe them out"
• "We are surrounding them and pounding them. The whole trend has changed and we are going to finalize this very soon."

And finally, Mohammad Saeed al-Sahhaf's Famous Last Words:

• "I now inform you that you are too far from reality."