SADDAM'S SPEECH: The bad news: there's enough details in it that he's probably still alive. The good news: as speeches by totalitarian, megalomaniac dictators go, Triumph of the Will, it ain't. "Blah blah blah, Iraq will be victorious...blah blah blah, kill the enemy and enter paradise...blah blah blah, Jihad...blah blah blah...Allah." Those last bits are interesting--calls to Muslims to fight for him.

Did anybody catch the graphic of the Iraqi eagle logo on blue cardboard before and after the speech? PBS in 1968 had better graphics.

(And yes, this time I think it's him, and not a double.)

Whoops--guess I spoke to soon. Walid Phares, MSNBC's Arab expert just said that Saddam didn't mention bombing of Baghdad, captured prisoners, recent battles, meeting of Arab League tomorrow. And this classic--"The bulk of the speech was beautiful Arab poetry." Geez.

MSNBC's man in the field says, "If I had to guess, I would say tape," adding, "Not a clean open" to the speech.

Amatzia Baram, another MSNBC Arab expert says, "This speech is canned." "he knew ahead of time" enough to make canned speech. No mention of prisoners of war. No mention of airplanes down by friendly fire. No mention of battles raging. "Taped maybe even a week before the war started."

Both Phares and Baram agree that no mention of Basra is telling.

By the way, if that was a live speech, Saddam been able to resume his daily paradrop of Grecian Formula--his hair was much blacker than the Saddam we saw on Wednesday night.

Sounds like Memorex to me.

Another man in the field, this time from Qatar: Saddam referenced the commander of the 11th brigade--that brigade has already surrendered.

The US and British "troops will find strong Iraqi troops fighting back", another MSNBC reporter quotes Saddam as saying. Well, they're already fighting back.