by JULIET WATERS

Paul Williams Roberts’ 1997 book, The Demonic Comedy, was an account of three trips Roberts took to Iraq before, during and after the Gulf War. Part gonzo travelogue and part history lesson, it was also a blistering attack on both the Republican and Democrat administrations for the war and the subsequent sanctions. Though critics were a little skeptical of certain anecdotes—like the time he interviewed Saddam Hussein on ecstasy (Roberts, not Hussein, took a tab thinking it was a pain killer)—others were spellbound, and there’s little doubt that few journalists out there know and care as much about Iraq.

When war was declared again, Harper’s sent the Toronto resident to Baghdad as their correspondent. Unencumbered by network protocol or insurance premiums, Williams also shot devastating television footage that would later appear on CBC. A War Against Truth: An Intimate Account of the Invasion of Iraq recounts his time before, during and after the invasion. It’s a story that is deeply tragic, often funny and 100 per cent un-embedded. The Mirror met with him about half an hour after the news broke of Dan Rather’s resignation. Since Rather was the only other journalist to interview Hussein in the last years of his dictatorship, it seemed like a good place to start a conversation:

Mirror: So what do you think about Rather’s resignation?

Paul William Roberts: I think we’re seeing a kind of Stalinist purge now. I mean, how many five-star generals are gone now? They [Bush administration] might have needed the media before, but now they don’t need anyone. They’ve got four years now to do their thing. The Pentagon has been purged. Anyone who might have disagreed with Rumsfeld is gone. Powell. The CIA—whoever thought you’d miss them? When is it going to come home to America that they’ve been totally hijacked? They didn’t have much of a democracy to begin with. Right now you’ve got a totalitarian regime. I mean the guy who invented the voting machine that they used in a lot of places is on record as saying “My machine is going to win George Bush the election.” Why aren’t they asking him what he meant?

M: At the same time, you have to wonder if Rather put up much resistance. The U.S. networks are so restricted now—how could any serious journalist want to be a network anchor?

PWR: Look at the gradual deterioration of networks since Vietnam. I remember seeing recordings where you’ve got Walter Cronkite asking, “Is this a war? We’ve got frightened people, dead babies, burnt.” When I saw some of the footage they shot back then I thought, “Man, where’s that?” because what’s happening in Iraq is just as bad. Everyone has just adopted the Pentagon terminology: “insurgents,” “foreign fighters.” I mean, who are the Americans, Iraqis? Where did the Iraqis go? This is an invasion that is still meeting resistance, and they simply can’t understand the Iraqi mentality. It’ll be a bitter fight to the last person. They have nothing to lose, the Sunni in particular. And now the army are targeting them. They just knocked off the leading Sunni ayatollah, and it wasn’t an Iraqi who did that job.

M: You don’t think so?

PWR: No. I mean who’s in charge? [Ambassador John] Negroponte. What are his qualifications? Death squads. [Negroponte is long believed to have masterminded CIA strategy in Central America.] Kill them before you even hear their names. Now it’s harder to get into Iraq than it was during Saddam’s time, for a journalist. I think that they’ve matched every one of Saddam’s atrocities and trumped it.

M: Do you think having a sense of humour helps? It seems like the only people getting through these days are the satirists.

PWR: Oh sure. This is why you get more people watching Jon Stewart. But of course they’ll never be taken as seriously.

A War Against Truth: An Intimate Account of the Invasion of Iraq by Paul Williams Roberts, Raincoast, hc, 366pp, $39.95