Voicover : The bricks of Babylon: This is the fabled palace of Nebuchadnezzar, rebuilt 2600 years after it first incarnation by Saddam Hussein. Nebuchadnezzar was the founder of the Mesopotamian civilisation; Hussein the current king. Just up the hill from the Babylonian kings: one of Saddam’s newer palaces. An archaeological affirmation of the modern day Babylonian empire. For Saddam’s eldest son Uday too, the ‘glory days’ aren’t just the stuff of history books. He is one of the most powerful and feared men in Iraq, well known for his chamber of torture at the Iraqi Olympic Committee.
A desperate attempt on his life in 1996 left Uday temporarily paralysed but he recovered to continue his control over a network of Iraqi media. The most influential: his daily newspaper Al-Babil. Al-Babil hasn’t always pleased the government. In November 2002 the paper carried a translation of a London Times article that reported on Saddam’s purchase of a Libyan bolthole for his inner circle. A week previously the paper had published a list of several hundred Iraqi officials that an opposition website had identified as "targets", under the headline "Heroes' list". It allegedly infuriated a number of those named. The issue was sold out in hours, and, hours after that, banned for several weeks. Saddam hit his eldest with exile, but now Uday is back in favour, with his own television station:
Uday Hussein, Editor, Babil : God is with us. God lets those which are in the right triumph! What the inspectors say is insignificant. They have no right to behave like that, like Zionists! Their way of thinking is the same. First they discover this, then that. The inspectors won’t find anything. Like my father says, we’re not lying. In this case we are speaking the truth.
Voiceover : The father in his son’s propaganda show: Singing and dancing in for the beloved leader in his hometown, Tikrit.
Uday Hussein : Come to us, you beautiful man! We give our blood for you. We sacrifice ourselves for you! You are our leader, and yet so modest. You are in our hearts.
Voiceover : Saddam’s family roots are the basis of his power. Men of his clan from the al-bu-naser stem. Sunni Muslims. Saddam Hussein; the sportsman. Here in the flood waters of the Tigris in Salahuddin near Tikrit, Saddam confirms his place as the idol of the nations enthusiastic swimmers.
Saddam Hussein, Iraqi State President : The double of Saddam has trained you, and he can only manage one river crossing. We’ll have to train him some more. Last time, when we crossed the river, the Americans said, that’s that double again. He couldn’t manage it three times. Only I can manage that!
Voiceover : More choreographed anti-war demonstrations – complete with anti USA slogans. Saddams Iraq in the crosshairs of the foreign media. Al jazeera – the current affairs revolution of the Arab world. For five years now it has had an office in Baghdad. 22 employees, all Iraqi, mouthpieces of Saddam - and his critics.
Faisal al-Yassiri, Al Jazeera, Baghdad : We are standing at the very spot where, while heavy artillery rained down for 5 or 6 days in 1998, where we filmed from. From here you get an excellent vista of Baghdad, and can see clearly where the bombs are falling. Here we are amid the ruins on 1998, as we – . Our colleagues from CBS were also on our roof here – we made a safe house - there are the remainders of it. We don’t think when the war comes – if it comes – it will be much use.
Voiceover : Waiting for the war. For the 40 or so journalists left here it’s a little like reporting in the old soviet bloc. Every journalist is assigned a ‘minder’. But like in the Eastern bloc, total control isn’t guaranteed, journalists use organisational chaos, overtaxed supervisors and informers to get the story. My minder is Mr Alaa. Clearly a big fan of animals. Two months ago he was working as a tour guide. The history of the old Assyrian friezes is more in his mind than thoughts of a possible future without Saddam Hussein. For the services of a man like Alaa, journalists pay the Ministry of Information 100 dollars a day. Of this Mr. Alaa sees precisely nothing - and he too expects a little extra income.
After four weeks we are a pretty good team. He watches me, I him, and both of us keep a beady eye on the state security team, Mukhabarat. They are Alaa’s boss, and they make him, uneasy, too. The pressure is on to show the right things. A trip to Iraq’s antiquity. Permission granted. A trip to the hospice to see the innocent victims of sanctions: filming no problem. Opponents to the war, preferably American, are welcome in Baghdad. If a journalist’s request doesn’t fit the mould, it’s banned. So inquires to interview alleged recently released political prisoners are allowed. The message of the media here: Saddam is Iraq-und Iraq is Saddam. And as long as that is true there’s no such thing as a free press in Saddam’s Iraq.
A desperate attempt on his life in 1996 left Uday temporarily paralysed but he recovered to continue his control over a network of Iraqi media. The most influential: his daily newspaper Al-Babil. Al-Babil hasn’t always pleased the government. In November 2002 the paper carried a translation of a London Times article that reported on Saddam’s purchase of a Libyan bolthole for his inner circle. A week previously the paper had published a list of several hundred Iraqi officials that an opposition website had identified as "targets", under the headline "Heroes' list". It allegedly infuriated a number of those named. The issue was sold out in hours, and, hours after that, banned for several weeks. Saddam hit his eldest with exile, but now Uday is back in favour, with his own television station:
Uday Hussein, Editor, Babil : God is with us. God lets those which are in the right triumph! What the inspectors say is insignificant. They have no right to behave like that, like Zionists! Their way of thinking is the same. First they discover this, then that. The inspectors won’t find anything. Like my father says, we’re not lying. In this case we are speaking the truth.
Voiceover : The father in his son’s propaganda show: Singing and dancing in for the beloved leader in his hometown, Tikrit.
Uday Hussein : Come to us, you beautiful man! We give our blood for you. We sacrifice ourselves for you! You are our leader, and yet so modest. You are in our hearts.
Voiceover : Saddam’s family roots are the basis of his power. Men of his clan from the al-bu-naser stem. Sunni Muslims. Saddam Hussein; the sportsman. Here in the flood waters of the Tigris in Salahuddin near Tikrit, Saddam confirms his place as the idol of the nations enthusiastic swimmers.
Saddam Hussein, Iraqi State President : The double of Saddam has trained you, and he can only manage one river crossing. We’ll have to train him some more. Last time, when we crossed the river, the Americans said, that’s that double again. He couldn’t manage it three times. Only I can manage that!
Voiceover : More choreographed anti-war demonstrations – complete with anti USA slogans. Saddams Iraq in the crosshairs of the foreign media. Al jazeera – the current affairs revolution of the Arab world. For five years now it has had an office in Baghdad. 22 employees, all Iraqi, mouthpieces of Saddam - and his critics.
Faisal al-Yassiri, Al Jazeera, Baghdad : We are standing at the very spot where, while heavy artillery rained down for 5 or 6 days in 1998, where we filmed from. From here you get an excellent vista of Baghdad, and can see clearly where the bombs are falling. Here we are amid the ruins on 1998, as we – . Our colleagues from CBS were also on our roof here – we made a safe house - there are the remainders of it. We don’t think when the war comes – if it comes – it will be much use.
Voiceover : Waiting for the war. For the 40 or so journalists left here it’s a little like reporting in the old soviet bloc. Every journalist is assigned a ‘minder’. But like in the Eastern bloc, total control isn’t guaranteed, journalists use organisational chaos, overtaxed supervisors and informers to get the story. My minder is Mr Alaa. Clearly a big fan of animals. Two months ago he was working as a tour guide. The history of the old Assyrian friezes is more in his mind than thoughts of a possible future without Saddam Hussein. For the services of a man like Alaa, journalists pay the Ministry of Information 100 dollars a day. Of this Mr. Alaa sees precisely nothing - and he too expects a little extra income.
After four weeks we are a pretty good team. He watches me, I him, and both of us keep a beady eye on the state security team, Mukhabarat. They are Alaa’s boss, and they make him, uneasy, too. The pressure is on to show the right things. A trip to Iraq’s antiquity. Permission granted. A trip to the hospice to see the innocent victims of sanctions: filming no problem. Opponents to the war, preferably American, are welcome in Baghdad. If a journalist’s request doesn’t fit the mould, it’s banned. So inquires to interview alleged recently released political prisoners are allowed. The message of the media here: Saddam is Iraq-und Iraq is Saddam. And as long as that is true there’s no such thing as a free press in Saddam’s Iraq.