Politics & Power Quote by Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf

A sentence meant to be a shield becomes, in real time, a punchline. Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf’s insistence that “There is no presence of American infidels in the city of Baghdad” wasn’t crafted to persuade skeptical outsiders; it was designed to overwrite reality for a domestic audience watching a regime wobble on live television. The intent is performative certainty: if you can state something with enough absolute confidence, you can momentarily suspend panic, keep bureaucratic and military loyalties intact, and project the illusion that the state still controls the narrative.

The subtext is theological and political at once. “Infidels” isn’t just an insult; it’s a framing device that turns a military invasion into a civilizational trespass, rallying identity against an invading “other.” It also sneaks in a moral hierarchy: the enemy isn’t merely foreign, it’s illegitimate. That choice of language tries to swap the invader’s technological superiority for the regime’s claim to righteous ground.

Context is doing the heavy lifting. Al-Sahaf delivered lines like this during the 2003 U.S.-led invasion as American forces were visibly advancing, sometimes reportedly within view. The mismatch between declaration and footage produced a strange kind of propaganda failure that was also a propaganda tactic: denial as delay. Even when unbelievable, it buys time, tests the audience’s willingness to accept official reality, and signals defiance. That’s why it works as rhetoric even when it fails as information: it’s not reporting the war so much as commanding how the war should be understood.