If the tape of Saddam being cheered in the streets being shown right now is a recent one, I’d bet it’s not Saddam. He does have doubles, as we’ve been told for months.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t matter whether it’s real, so much as whether the Iraqi people, and particularly Baghdad residents believe that it’s real, or at least now have to doubt that he’s out of power. This is to a large extent a psychological war, and this tape will lengthen the war and make it more difficult, so from that standpoint, it’s excellent propaganda. It’s one of the first smart things that I’ve seen the regime do, and I’m surprised they haven’t done it sooner.

[Update at 10:38 AM PST]

Dave over at Greeblie blog points out in the comments that Saddam looks kind of young here. Because of the smoke in the distance, it’s either a very recent tape, or a very old one (i.e., from the Gulf War, when we were bombing the snot out of Baghdad with much less precise munitions).

That possibility could be eliminated if we knew whether that monument of Iraqi-Palestinian solidarity existed back then.

[One more thought at 11:09 AM PST]

I would think that the primary audience for this would be the inhabitants of Baghdad (though he may be trying to hold what remains of the rest of the country together as well). But I thought the power was out in the city, so who’s going to see it?

[Yet another update to the last one at 11:40 AM PST]

Now the BBC is reporting that the power is back on, at least in some parts of the city.