Wars can become intriguing political games, but often for different reasons.

At the press conference in Baghdad Paul Bremer, the White House-appointed administrator of Iraq, did well to control his effusiveness when he announced: "Ladies and gentlemen, we got 'im." Some pictures never lie. The ones of a haggard, bearded, resigned Saddam Hussein did not. But now more lies and deception by the United States are seeping forth: For one, just who got Saddam Hussein?

The world was told, live by satellite television, on Sunday, Dec 14 at 3pm Baghdad time, that Saddam had been caught. And we were told it was US special operations forces that had captured the Baghdad butcher hiding in a hole like a rat on a farm in al-Dwar just outside Tikrit, his tribal homeland. We were led to believe that the rat had just been caught, give or take a few hours. Fact is, Saddam was captured the previous day, Dec 13, at 8:30pm Baghdad time. So why did the US sit on the news for 18 and a half hours?