Amir al-Saadi plays his card
From TV combat to TV surrender, and all in a week. Yesterday, General Amir al-Saadi, one of Saddam's senior aides, gave himself up to US forces in Baghdad. The suave al-Saadi was Saddam's liaison with UN weapons inspectors and he's the first from a list of 55 high ranking officials wanted by the United States dead or alive to surrender. With his name on that famous deck of cards (Note: this is a large PDF file) distributed to US forces in Iraq, the general decided to choose discretion rather than valour.
Actually, there was nothing discreet about the manner of al-Saadi's surrender. He contacted the German television station ZDF, which went to his handsome villa, filmed a statement and then took the general and his German wife to a unit of US soldiers. With his public statement and public surrender, the world was being informed that if anything untoward happened to this sophisticated family man, those "Invasoren" (invaders), as sectors of the German media term the coalition forces, would be held to account.
It was a minor scoop for ZDF and its Baghdad correspondent Ulrich Tilgner and it played well on German TV. Looking at the images of the elegant house, the concerned wife and the urbane figure making his sincere-sounding statement, in which he denied the existence of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, membership of the Ba'ath party and knowledge Saddam Hussein's whereabouts, viewers must have felt disposed to believe his words. Could such a nice man have been a monster's assistant for all those years? And look at how carefully he and his wife covered their furniture to prevent dust from gathering upon it. Such fastidiousness. No, definitely not a mass murderer. Although, come to think of it, some of those who pulled the levers in 20th century tyrannies and authorised unspeakable crimes had impeccable manners, dressed tastefully and had charming wives. But that was then, right?
Diarist of the day: Rev. Francis Kilvert, 13 April 1872"The two old women Hannah Jones and Sarah Probert were both laying in bed and groaning horribly. I gave them some money and their cries and groans suddenly ceased. "
