Man of the hour

My vote for Man of the Hour – or at least the last 15 minutes – is Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf.

Sahaf, Information Minister for the late, unlamented Saddam Hussein regime, is the legendary Last Man Standing. If each of us is entitled to that proverbial 15 minutes of fame, this man played his ration of fame to the hilt.

While Republican Guard forces continued to fall back under the great pressure of intense aerial bombardment and the irresistible advance of the US Marines and the US Cavalry, this man described the coalition armored columns as a snake in the desert soon to be chopped to pieces by Saddam’s invincible army. As American troops took the airport and began probing the suburbs of Baghdad, Sahab claimed that the television footages of victories coalition forces were staged in Hollywood.

While US tanks rolled leisurely across Baghdad, the Information Minister claimed that American troops were committing mass suicides on the walls of Baghdad. As shells demolished his ministry building, Sahab stood on the sidewalk, predicting that the Fedayeen will oust the intruders from the city in due time.

This man is truly incredible – in every sense of that word.

His claims were totally at odds with reality, but he crackled on without pause. His cause was totally lost, but he refused to give up.

Sahaf had a job to do. And he did it with amazing aplomb.

I don’t think anybody believed a word he said. But every day, at three in the afternoon, he appeared for his routine press conferences anyway, hammering away at the invaders with hostile rhetoric, brave posturing and unwarranted optimism. In his last appearance, he claimed the American tanks roaming the streets of Baghdad were trapped and their crews were waiting for the first opportunity to surrender.

Saddam could not have reclaimed a better civil servant for his ill-fated regime.

As the Marines crashed through Republican Guard defenses, I wondered aloud what sort of vitamins were issued them. But, energy level considered, they were all outdone by the Information Minister.

I wondered aloud what sort of drug he was on.

One wisecrack, who always comes up with the most bizarre conspiracy theories, whispered under his breath that he had reliable information Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf was a CIA deep penetration agent. He was inserted into Saddam’s bureaucracy many years ago precisely to do what he did the past few days. He was there to confuse his principals, mislead the tyrant’s army and sabotage whatever credibility the regime had left.

I hold a rather different theory about this man.

In his great sense of justice and comedy, the Cosmic God created this man to bring all of us some comic relief in the midst of a ghastly war. Sahaf’s daily briefings, if we could call these exercises such, gave us respite from all the scenes of bombardment and combat, all the scenes of suffering and destruction.

If it is true that reality has indeed many hidden dimensions, Sahaf should be conserved as living witness to the actuality of alternative realities. He must be truly gifted. He sees things others could not even begin to imagine.

I submit Sahaf is a direct descendant of whoever conceived in his solitary mind the fabulous hanging gardens of Babylon.

I will never call Sahaf insane. That is a word better reserved for some of those who devoutly want to be our President. Or those from among us who tried to make their way to Baghdad to act as "human shields" against Tomahawk missiles.

I will concede Sahaf to be a madly loyal civil servant. Call him a fanatic, if you must. But this guy never abandoned his job to the very end and never even asked to be relieved.

There is something truly heroic about this Information Minister. While all the other officials of the Saddam regime hunkered down and shuddered in dark bunkers under a besieged city, this man walked the streets without bodyguards, recited battle statistics without notes and buttonholed anyone who cared to listen to his rather different ranting.

Okay, so he spewed out mainly fiction. But how far worse could he be than the Bayan Muna spokesman or some of our leftist columnists who argued that Macapagal-Arroyo government should be deposed because it supported a war overwhelmingly opposed by the Filipino people? Surveys establish the contrary fact that 9 out of 10 Filipinos support the coalition effort in Iraq.

In the event NPA spokesman Ka Roger Rosal is knocked out of action, the CPP overlords in Utrecht might consider recruiting Sahaf into the service of another failed cause.

I am sure that before the week ends, poor Sahaf will be unemployed. Fired might not be the proper word. This heroic spokesman simply outlived a regime that evaporated before superior force and superior reason.

As my own personal gesture of magnanimity and humanitarian concern for the unemployed people of Iraq, I hereby volunteer to be Mohammed Saeed al Sahaf’s job placement agent.

If I could somehow get hold of this brave man’s CV, I will fax it promptly to the headquarters Ping Lacson for President Movement. They better grab Sahaf before Jose Ma. Sison does.

The Ping Lacson for President Movement needs a drastic dose of color and imagination right now. Lito Banayo, for all his talents, simply cannot suffice to generate excitement for his candidate. He whines and snipes and whines and snipes again and again.

He is beginning to be like his candidate.

My suggestion is to use a double-barreled public relations frontline composed of Ador Mawanay and Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf. Now that will surely generate excitement.

Between them Mawanay and Sahab can save a desperate situation by turning reality inside out. They will grab our attention and hold it permanently captive. They will entertain us even as they misinform.

Sahab, in particular, has splendidly unique credentials. He once served, without surrender, a leader with much appetite for torturing and killing his own people.