Time & Perspective Quote by Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf

It is bravado calibrated for a camera lens, not a battlefield. Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf, Saddam Hussein's information minister during the 2003 invasion of Iraq, isn’t merely denying reality; he’s trying to outpace it. The line works because it turns a high-tech symbol of U.S. dominance - the cruise missile - into something quaint and manageable, a problem of local skill. “Like fish in a river” is folksy on purpose: it shrinks the terror of precision bombardment into a familiar, almost recreational image. If the enemy’s most sophisticated weapon can be “caught,” then the war is re-scripted as competence versus intrusion, not regime collapse.

The specific intent is twofold: soothe Iraqis watching Baghdad burn and signal to the regime’s inner circle that the state still controls the narrative. The numbers (196 in two days) are less information than theater. Precision makes lies risky; specificity makes them feel true. It’s the propaganda trick of quantitative confidence: say it with digits and it sounds like a report, not a wish.

The subtext is anxiety dressed as certainty. Denial here is not ignorance; it’s a tactic to buy time, to keep morale from cracking, to project sovereignty when sovereignty is being dismantled in real time. The context - televised briefings contradicting live footage and reporters’ observations - turned al-Sahaf into a global meme before memes had a name. That afterlife is part of why the quote endures: it’s the sound of a collapsing regime insisting, with straight-faced arithmetic, that collapse is victory.