LOS ANGELES – A member of Saddam Hussein‘s vanquished regime has sprung up as an unlikely hero in cyberspace on a Web site embraced by both supporters and foes of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. Television news junkies transfixed by daily briefings by Iraqi Minister of Information Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf are now logging onto a Web site featuring his finest invective against U.S. and British „infidels.“ The site already is offering T-shirts and mugs bearing al-Sahaf‘s best-loved statements („My feelings — as usual — we will slaughter them all!“) and has selected actor and director Sydney Pollack to play the information minister in the Hollywood version of the war.

Writer and former Greenpeace activist Kieran Mulvaney, a Briton living in Alaska, said he and friends got the idea for the site — www.WeLoveTheIraqiInformationMinister.com — while watching cable news coverage of the three-week-old war. „I mentioned to one of my friends that the best part is watching this guy,“ Mulvaney said. „He is so brazen that I could almost admire him.“ Mulvaney and his friends designed, built and put up the site in three days. Within hours of going live on the Internet, the site „has exploded,“ Mulvaney said. The same day, U.S. troops marched into Baghdad and al-Sahaf disappeared, or in the view of his new Web site, went on „administrative leave.“

„I hope he is alive somewhere so he knows how famous he has become,“ Mulvaney said. „We even had a few e-mails from within the Pentagon saying, ‘We really like this guy and we miss him.‘“ Reuters