A Hundred and One Days: A Baghdad Journal Read Online Free PDF Page B

there is obviously one cardinal rule: only the president’s voice is heard. Whenever one of the military chiefs makes a comment, the violins take over. The sound returns when Saddam answers.
     
    I sit in front of the TV all evening, mesmerised. It is Saddam Hussein all the way, be it news, religious or entertainment programmes. Music videos are played, one after another, between shots of the military council. There is one man and one message - Saddam!
     
    The stars of the music videos appear only briefly on screen. Saddam plays the main role, in a variety of get-ups: uniform, lounge suit, white shirt and braces, feathered green Tyrolean hat, black beret, turban, Bedouin dress, Palestinian scarf, lambskin hat, or Argentinian tango hat; more often than not waving a rifle around.
     
    Labourers also feature frequently in the videos, hammering and welding - the country is being built and defended for all to see. Other videos show historical ruins, camels in the desert, mighty waterfalls and beaches, followed by fighter planes, aircraft carriers and marching soldiers.
     
    Up-to-date pictures of anti-war demonstrations from all over the world are also given prominent coverage on Iraqi TV. They even find a European wandering around with a portrait of Saddam.
     
    Suddenly weapons inspectors appear on the screen and a Viennese waltz wafts from the TV set. The inspectors are standing outside a tall gate. They are being hassled by an Iraqi whose threatening finger is beating time to the music. Bumbling inspectors stumble around. Some are listening; some look down on the ground, others up in the air. The TV viewer cannot hear what is being said, but one thing is for sure: the Iraqi is giving the intruders a dressing down. With their rucksacks and blue berets, they remind one of a school outing where no one knows where they are or what they are supposed to look at. We never see them actually inspecting anything, we only see them being given instructions. The pictures are repeated time and again. Iraqi TV has quite simply constructed a ludicrous music video of and with the weapons inspectors - to waltz time - and they are walking out of step. Only the threatening finger keeps time - quick, quick, slow.
     
    I have read that from time to time Saddam Hussein communicates his private thoughts to the populace. - I never have problems falling asleep. I fall asleep the moment I put my head on the pillow and I never use sleeping pills, he once said in a rare personal TV interview. At other times he relays a few comforting words and tells the viewers not to worry.
     
    - If I am not always smiling, do not worry. The smile is there. It is there because I have chosen the right way. I smile because Americans and Zionists will have to be sacrificed. They should have chosen a small country to fight against, not mighty Iraq.
     
    Now Saddam sits behind a desk. He talks to the camera. Is he giving us some useful sleeping advice?
     
    - Good night. Sleep well. I am watching over you!
     
    In slow motion he rides off the screen on a white horse - into the sunset.
     
     
    The next day Hans Blix holds a press conference. It will be the last before he sets off for New York with his final report to the UN Security Council. I arrive at Hotel al-Kanal on the outskirts of Baghdad in plenty of time. I am without my minder for the first time; they are denied entry. This is UN territory. I gleefully leave Takhlef by the entrance and trot into the conference hall. Blix and his men arrive one hour late. The good-natured Swede gives a sober account of the latest developments from the weapons inspections, what the Iraqi government has accepted, what the obstacles are. He thinks the Iraqis are yielding, that they might agree to more UN demands. - But we need more time, he says.
     
    When he has finished several hands fly up in the air. Quick-on-the-draw journalists vie with each other to ask questions. They all speak at once. - Mister Blix, Mister Blix! The answers