Eric Mueller reports:

ON 7 May the Sydney Morning Herald website "published" a tape recording of a message from Saddam Hussein that sounds to me to be authentic.

In addition, they ran what they called a "Full transcript of the Saddam tape." Actually, when I listened to the recording on the Sydney Morning Herald website, it appeared that the transcript is, in fact, somewhat summarised. I'm afraid I couldn't do any better, however, either because the quality of the tape recording appeared to be of uneven quality, or my own computer's sound system might well leave something to be desired.

Their somewhat summarised English "transcript" is on line at:

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/05/07/1051987718936.html

Their audio recording (which sounds authentic) is at:

http://media.f2.com.au/?rid=12132&site=smh

I am concerned, however, because the Sydney Morning Herald seems to be beginning to make it difficult to access the transcript and recording. That is, if one types in the URLs (which I copied on the day the items were published) one can still access them directly and free of charge. But if one tries to find the items by doing a search for them through the newspaper's homepage, one is asked to make a credit card payment for them.

I don't know how long these items will remain available under their current URLs on their website. I wonder if there's any way we can copy the tape recording and SMH's (partial) transcript to the Action Report so as to ensure that they don't disappear into the private fiefdom of that newspaper. These, particularly the recording, are important items of record and should remain accessible to the public.

Arabist Eric Mueller is this website's expert on Middle Eastern affairs.

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