Scott McClellan reminds me of Saddam Hussein's Minister of Information, Muhammad Sai'd Al Sahhaf... kind of.
For those who have forgotten or are too young to remember, Al Sahhaf was the most visible and colorful Iraqi official during the invasion of Iraq in 2003, until a day before the fall of Baghdad on April 9 of that year, when he vanished. Much of the information given by Al Sahhaf during the war was clearly inaccurate. However, for several weeks, Al Sahhaf enthralled world media with statements such as, "the Iraqi army is sending back the 'Oulouj' (the mercenaries) in body bags ... back to where they had crawled from," and "there are no American infidels in Baghdad," at a time when American tanks were pouring into the Iraqi capital.
A couple of months later, after having been interrogated by the US forces and released, Al Sahhaf re-surfaced in the United Arab Emirates where he reportedly received more than a quarter million dollars for interviews about the last days of the war and the old Iraqi regime he recorded on Abu Dhabi and Al Arabiya channels.
This week we have learned that the Bush Administration used similar tactics to mislead the public during the Iraqi War according to former White House Press Secretary, Scott McClellan.
In his book, What Happened, he accuses President Bush of "self-deception" saying his administration relied on an aggressive "political propaganda campaign" instead of truth to sell the Iraq war. Scott McClellan is also cashing in but his take will be far greater than Al Sahhaf's.
Meanwhile, Arab media has been abuzz with "I told you so" editorials and television talk show debates. Many analysts felt vindicated about having questioned how the Bush Administration justified its invasion of Iraq: the WMD's program that Saddam Hussein was allegedly conducting in movable train carts. Some also claimed that the U.S. has been exaggerating the success of the surge in Iraq. If you recall, former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld had accused Al Jazeera TV of spreading "vicious lies" in the aftermath of the war.
Last night, an Arab commentator boasted, "you see, the Americans also have a Minister of Misinformation, just like we do here in many countries in the Middle East. There are two differences though: First, they call him White House Press Secretary. Second, unlike here in the Middle East the American public does not know that he is lying."
Jamal Dajani produces the Mosaic Intelligence Report on Link TV