Column by Michael Mead

In the battle for the heavyweight propaganda title, Iraq division, judges at ringside had a no-brainer. The Iraqi Information Minister, Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf (whose last reported words form this column's title), won a clear decision, despite being underweight and underarmed, against the giant, undefeated Empire in United States Defence Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld.

Mr Al-Sahaf reminded me of Hitler's last broadcasts from 1945 Berlin. As a propaganda minister, the Iraqi Minister must rank with Josef Goebbels in an all-time top 10. His victorious armies are even now approaching the gates of San Francisco, shoes in hand to thrust into the faces of unsuspecting Americans used to greater personal hygiene in invading forces (in the Arab world shoe sticking is a great insult).

Mr Al-Sahaf condemned Coalition statements as "illusions and lies" and its forces were "cowards, mercenaries, criminal baxxxxds" and finally "not normal humans." Memorably he held a press conference during the fall of Baghdad where he denounced the invasion as 'a propaganda exercise'. The trouble was American jets filled the very skies he was speaking under. Confidence in rhetoric was the only thing in large supply as the war ended.

Mr Al-Sahaf's opponent in the war-ring was Donald Rumsfeld. He knew he'd win before the fight was even declared. Rumsfeld was David Tua versus any number of patsies. No Ali-Foreman Rumble in the Jungle here. This was more like a giant elephant trampling ants with attitude.

While Mr Al-Sahaf won points for living in fantasyland, Mr. Rumsfeld lost points for malevolence. In a war where American missiles killed children and innocent civilians at a Baghdad market, Mr Rumsfeld admonished journalists at one point for only reporting the 'negative' side of the war. Like some creepy American Summer Camp director, Mr Rumsfeld wheeled out happy pictures of victorious United States soldiers with smiling Iraqi children and urged the media to cover the war's 'successes'.

You have to wonder where the truth is. Watching both sides on television we probably got no closer to it. The coverage became a repetitive tragicomedy as the surreal statements of Mr Al-Sahaf gave way to the oily incantations of Mr Rumsfeld. I suspect the truth of the war was at ground level where the Independent's Robert Fisk sifted through the debris of a Baghdad market to find missile parts made in Texas and human remains.

Fisk devoted his time to recording the voices of those who would not otherwise be heard: "As each survivor talked, the dead regained their identities." He attracted the wrath of the principalities and powers such as British Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon who attacked him. In a propaganda war being attacked by your own people is a sign of credibility. Fisk was like a Biblical prophet who refused to be bowed.

The deaths of so many innocent people and the suffering of those who live on are the final truths of the war. Thousands of miles away, in comfortable living rooms, being fed a multi-course TV dinner, we are all too far from the truth.