The first two weeks of the "Decisive Battle" opened with officials in Washington and London jostling to declare Saddam "decapitated" or at least wounded.

They closed with more sobering admissions that US and British intelligence has no idea where he is, dead or alive.

Saddam has deployed all his skills as a master of deception to outfox the big hitters of the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and Department of Defence.

Failure to show up to give a "holy war" speech on state television on Tuesday night led to a frenzy of optimistic speculation about the health of the "great leader".

But the furor had barely died down before new twists emerged to fuel the debate.

State television, which has continued to broadcast despite several interruptions due to cruise missile assaults, read out another statement in his name on Wednesday morning.

And that was followed with a report of a meeting Saddam had chaired with advisers, including his two sons Qusay, head of the elite Republican Guard, and Uday, who runs the Fedayeen paramilitary corps.

No visual proof was offered.

But the CIA barely had time to analyse the new declarations before Saddam popped up again on screen, beaming out at his tormentors, for the first time in three days.

Wearing military uniform, a smiling and relaxed Saddam paid floral tribute to the "heroic resistance" of Iraqi fighters against US and British invaders.

The film showed a relatively small room which could of course have been virtually anywhere.

The meeting was attended by Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan, Deputy Prime Minister Tareq Aziz, Military Industrialization Minister Abdul Tawwab al-Mullah Howeish, Trade Minister Mohammad Mehdi Saleh, Interior Minister Mahmud Diab al-Ahmed and Oil Minister Amer Rashid.

"The meeting paid tribute to the heroic resistance by our people's valiant armed forces and sons as they fight and drive back the cowardly American-British aggression," the television said.

And Saddam then added another tantalising glimpse into the dead-or-alive issue with an appeal and warning to Kurds on Wednesday night.

The official media released the contents of what appeared to be a pure-Saddam letter warning Kurdish leaders flirting with the United States that he was still in charge.

"I advise you not to rush toward anything that you will regret, as you know that this leadership and the state leading the confrontation against the invaders are staying," Saddam told Jalal Talabani, leader of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK).

Saddam urged Talabani to "avoid confronting the (Iraqi) army and people," in a letter read by Information Minister Mohammad Said al-Sahhaf.

"A copy of this letter is sent to Massoud Mustapha Barzani, head of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP)," said the message.

"It is my moral, basic and constitutional duty to warn you of the dangers of this game, if you have surrendered to it," he said.

Saddam has fine-tuned such cat-and-mouse games throughout his adult life, surviving jail, flight into exile, would-be assassins, coup attempts, war and repeated trial by US cruise missile.

Biographers relate how for years he flitted from house to house, often surprising ordinary people in the middle of the night, to sleep anywhere he might feel safe.

If he lives, he will be 66 on April 28, a date which the regime celebrates nationwide with great pomp and ceremony, shipping in hundreds of foreign journalists and dignitaries.

But even on that day, Saddam has not appeared in public for years, preferring to let state television show fleeting images of him mingling with small children.

Where or when the footage was shot is as much as anybody's guess as are the images of today.

SPACE.WIRE