"Clearly in the dying gasps of this regime, there is a lot of hot air coming from the minister of information in terms of bizarre attampts to deny reality on the ground around Baghdad," deputy spokesman Philip Reeker said.

Reeker was referring to the latest series of pronouncments from Iraqi information minister Mohammad Said Sahhaf who earlier denied that Saddam's Republican Palace had not fallen to US forces as claimed.

In addition, Sahhaf insisted that US troops were not in Baghdad despite videotape evidence of their presence being aired repeatedly on international television.

"Don't believe these invaders and these liars," he told reporters in an impromptu news conference in the Iraqi capital. "There are none of their troops in Baghdad."

"There are no American troops in Baghdad," Sahhaf continued. "They do not even have control of themselves. They are sick."

Reeker declined to comment on Sahhaf's motives but said the Iraqi people would soon be able to hear the truth from all their media outlets.

"There will be an oppportunity once the regime is gone for the new Iraq to have a media that is responsible, that provides them (the Iraqi people) with the facts and an opportunity to know about the outside world and understand better what the regime of Saddam Hussein has perpetrated against them for many years," he said.

SPACE.WIRE