Letter From Baghdad

”SORRY I haven’t written for a while,’ the letter goes. ‘I am afraid I have been otherwise detained.

‘This dictating business is enough to turn you grey’

‘Life has changed quite a lot for me since I last wrote. I am no longer dictating and since the Americans arrived I have had to move out of all my palaces.

‘I have also grown a beard. It’s got a few grey bits in it, but nothing that a bit of Grecian 2000 wouldn’t sort out. The trouble is it’s very hard to get hold of here. Could you send me a bottle?

‘Also, I’m down to the nasty strawberry ones in my last box of Quality Streets. I know I should have saved some of the toffees, but you know me. I never could resist them.

‘Anyway, must dash – have to go and answer some more dumb American questions. Still, I’ve been promised a cameo role in The Simpsons if I cooperate.

‘See you soon. Love, Saddam.’

The Telegraph says that during his years in power the former dictator of Iraq was accused of murdering tens of thousands of people, waging war against neighbouring states, systematic torture, using weapons of mass destruction against civilians, arbitrary arrests and a catalogue of other human rights abuses.

But in a letter delivered to his family by the International Committee of the Red Cross and made public by his lawyers, Saddam’s mind is on more mundane matters.

He asks relatives ‘to say hello to everyone’, adding: ‘My spirit and morale are high, thanks to the greatness of God’.

However, the Guardian says that nine of the 14 lines of the latter were blacked out by US military censors, with only 17 Arabic words visible.

What was contained in the deleted bits we don’t know, but Saddam’s lawyers insist that their client is being mistreated by his captors.

On his capture card (on which Saddam describes his occupation as ‘president of the Republic of Iraq’), two options regarding the detainee’s health have been ticked – ‘good health’ and ‘slightly wounded’.

As the form instructs captors only to tick one box, Anorak has learnt that the capture card itself is therefore invalid – an administrative blunder which means that Saddam will have to be set free.’

Posted: 24th, June 2004 | In: Broadsheets Comment | TrackBack | Permalink