The entire Iraqi regime leadership seems to have disappeared yesterday. Sorely missed is the Iraqi information minister, who gave daily accounts of the latest exploits of the Iraqi army in resisting the advancing coalition forces. He would boast about the latest number of "mercenaries" killed by the Iraqi army and mock the futility of the coalition forces' attempt to enter Baghdad. Even when television pictures were showing American marines walking on the tarmac of the Saddam International Airport (now renamed Baghdad International Airport), he was still claiming that it is still in Iraqi hands and the Americans have been driven away from the area. At one point he even drew parallels between what the coalition forces are saying through the Western media to the American movie "Wag the Dog" starring Robert De Niro and Dustin Hoffman! In this movie, a Washington spin-doctor and a Hollywood producer fabricated a war through the media to divert attention from a brewing presidential sex scandal back home.

The Iraqi Information Minister could be a master of lying through his teeth, but I do admire his taste for American movies.