Muhammad Saeed al-Sahhaf

Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf is an Iraqi former diplomat and politician. He served as Minister of Foreign Affairs from 1992 to 2001. He came to worldwide prominence around the 2003 invasion of Iraq, during which he was the Minister of Information under Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, acting as spokesman for the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party and Saddam's government. He has also been nicknamed Baghdad Bob or Comical Ali (a play on "Chemical Ali") for his notable and colorful television appearances as the Information Minister of Iraq. Early life and career Al-Sahhaf was born in Hilla, near Karbala, to a Shi'ite Arab family. After studying journalism at Baghdad University, he graduated with a master's degree in English literature. He planned to become an English teacher before joining the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party in 1963. In the early days of Ba'athist governance, he read out regular announcements of recently executed Iraqis on state television. He served as an ambassador to Sweden, Burma, the United Nations and Italy, before returning to Iraq to serve as Foreign Minister in 1992. The reasons for his removal as Foreign Minister in April 2001 are unclear, but his achievements in the position were often claimed to be less satisfactory than that of his predecessor, Tariq Aziz. At least one report suggests that Uday Hussein, Saddam Hussein's son, was responsible for the removal. Invasion of Iraq