Sahhaf has no regrets, but withholds verdict on Iraq 'earthquake'

Sahhaf, who shot to fame for his wildly inaccurate statements on the military situation in the runup to Saddam's ouster, resisted persistent questioning about the events leading up to what he termed the April 9 “earthquake,” saying he would put his assessment in writing in due course.

Interviewed by the Dubai-based Al Arabiya news channel “in a suburb of Baghdad,” Saddam's information supremo professed ignorance of his world fame, describing himself as “a simple person.”

In excerpts of the interview shown on Thursday — marking his first public appearance since he dropped out of sight when the US-led coalition took over Baghdad — Sahhaf said he had turned himself in to US forces who questioned him about his past work and then freed him.

“I don't know” if Saddam is alive, or if footage of the former Iraqi strongman broadcast since his overthrow was genuine or pre-recorded, Sahhaf said.

The ex-minister, whose interview was aired under the theme “Sahhaf speaks out,” also said, when asked about Saddam and sons Qusai and Uday whose whereabouts are unknown, that he had not seen anyone from “the leadership” since the fall of Baghdad.

Although Sahhaf insisted on deferring his verdict on the Iraq “earthquake” to the right time, he was heard telling Al Arabiya's correspondent in English after the interview had ended that he thought his “adamant answers” were “interesting enough.”

“Adamant” was an apparent reference to his repeated refusal to make a “hasty” judgement or apportion responsibility for the sudden collapse of the Baath regime.

“I would like to have (all elements) before speaking out. I am now telling you what I can. You and I need more time to go into details,” he said.

“You do not write history in a TV interview,” he said when asked if the Iraqi leadership had erred.

Sahhaf said he had “no opinion at all” about the resistance to US occupation and whether it was inspired by the former regime, and described his past relationship with Saddam as “like that of any minister in the government.”

“I sure was,” he said when asked whether he had been pained by the sight of US forces sweeping through the Iraqi capital, where he said he would continue to live as a private citizen, looking after his family and possibly writing memoirs.

But although Sahhaf refrained from making value judgements, he suggested that the picture of the regime's sudden collapse could be misleading without the knowledge of all factors leading up to April 9, stressing that those factors needed to be researched and checked.

“The time has not come to tell the story,” he said.

He also said that portraying his remarks about Iraqi successes during the conflict as inaccurate amounted to taking them out of context.

“If you go into the timing, hour by hour and day by day, you would see what the justifications (of the remarks) were... When the picture is drawn objectively, you will see that they were not fabricated,” Sahhaf said.

“That's what you (not I) think,” Sahhaf interjected when his interviewer reported that many Iraqis saw the advent of the Americans as a “blessing.”

Sahhaf, thinner and his hair turned white since he was last seen before Saddam's ouster, managed a few smiles in the course of the half-hour chat despite his subdued appearance that was a far cry from his old combative self.

“Me? I didn't know that,” he said when told that he had become a “star” in the West.

“I am a simple person,” and “we are a simple, modest family,” he said.

During the war, the bespectacled Sahhaf won fans worldwide for his in-your-face defiance as US and British troops swept through the country in their drive to topple Saddam.

A website in his honour, www.welovetheiraqiinformationminister.com, featuring his most quotable remarks, drew an overwhelming response after its launch, attracting 4,000 visitors per second at one point, according to its webmaster.

“There are no American infidels in Baghdad. Never!” read the first of the “treasury of deathless quotes” on the site.

Even US President George W. Bush said in April that he had stepped out of meetings in Washington to catch a few of Sahhaf's daily press conferences.

Abu Dhabi television also aired a short interview with Sahhaf Thursday night in which he said that while he had given out correct information at the time of the conflict, its “interpretation” by Iraqi officials was not.

“Not at all,” he said when asked by Al Arabiya if he regretted having played the role he did under Saddam.

Would he do it again?

“History does not repeat itself,” Sahhaf replied.