This is the Saddam Islamists are Desperate to Deny

Looking like a goat being lead to slaughter, Saddam is dragged from his hole.

The photo above illustrates the real reason for the recent allegations of a Saddam capture hoax. With the insurgency increasingly desperate, as indicated by the increasing number of suicide attacks, terrorists need a symbol. A fighting Saddam would fill the bill. Unfortunately for them, the impotent old man above, with his tongue lolling out, is the true face of the Baathist party. This is intolerable to Islamic militants, and to many people on the Left in the US. That's why the ridiculous story of Saddam's pistol fight with 600 American troops was broken in Lebanon this week. It wasn't the first attempted hoax, and probably won't be the last.

From a CNN story soon after Saddam's capture

About 600 soldiers of the 1st Brigade, 4th Infantry Division, and special operations forces of Task Force 121 conducted the raid in Ad Dawr, near a group of ramshackle buildings. They found Saddam hiding in a 6-to-8 foot deep hole, equipped with a basic ventilation system and covered with bricks and dirt.

But where is ex-sergeant Nadim Abou Rabeh of the Marines? There were no Marine units operating in the area.

A previous "Saddam Capture Hoax" questioned whether it was actually Saddam Hussein who had been captured, Azatlan.net:

An increasing number of persons worldwide are questioning the version of the capture as reported by the media. This skepticism is especially evident in the Islamic world. Saddam Hussein's 35 year old daughter, Raghad Hussein,was blunt about her doubts concerning the capture when she said to Al-Arabiya, an Arabic-language television network, "This is not our father! This is not how he would act." Other Muslims as far away as Sri Lanka expressed their doubts that the real Saddam Hussein had been captured. Abu Haniffa, the president of the Sri Lanka Traders' Association said, "Some of our people think the pictures could be part of a US ploy or Saddam's own strategy to create a double and flee attempts to capture him."

The questions about his identity seem to have been dropped.

And the Sunday Herald was absolutely adamant that Saddam was actually captured by Kurds earlier:

It was two weeks ago that the Sunday Herald revealed how a Kurdish special forces unit belonging to the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) had spearheaded and tracked down Saddam, sealing off the al-Dwar farmhouse long "before the arrival of the US forces".

UPI has published the Pentagon's reaction, which characterized the allegations as "ridiculous". Regardless of whether WHAM in Rochester ever gets around to updating their story with the Pentagon's response, its purpose has been served: to sew doubt of any kind regarding US operations in the Middle East. It doesn't matter to the terrorists or their enablers on the Left how gossamer-thin the allegations may be; all they need is for them to survive one news cycle. That provides a rich trove of places to link. In years to come, this ridiculous story will be cited over and over by anti-Americans to justify whatever mischief they might be up to at the moment.