From the WSJ Opinion Archives
DE GUSTIBUS
About Face
Saddam's doubles look for work.
With the capture of Saddam Hussein, U.S. forces aced the Ace of Spades. Other cards from the notorious deck of evil are sure to fall soon too.
Still, there is one part of Saddam's cadre we don't hear much about these days: the six or so beefy, mustachioed men who served as Saddam's doubles, stand-ins ready to saunter before his adoring public or dodge the bullets from his unadoring one. I wonder what's happened to them--and what will.
One finds oneself feeling a certain sympathy for the doubles. Consider their plight: Cursed by nature to resemble the hated dictator, they must feel as alienated from themselves as did Gregor Samsa the morning he awoke to find that he had turned into a cockroach. It was once the "role of a lifetime." There was probably no turning it down. Now it is yesterday's news. Or last Sunday's.
Perhaps a few of the doubles have already been gathered up by coalition forces or torn to shreds by their countrymen. Or maybe they are in hiding themselves, burrowing into spider holes. It is probable that, with the weekend's news, their status is at an all-time low.
Or maybe there are new roles for them to play . . .
The perils of the doppelganger call to mind a charming novel by Simon Leys published about 10 years ago. Titled "The Death of Napoleon," it proposed that the French emperor had escaped his imprisonment on the island of St. Helena by placing a double in his place there. The real Napoleon then made his way back to Europe for a final grab at power. Alas, before he could launch his coup, his St. Helena double thoughtlessly died, seeming to put paid, in the public's mind, to the whole Napoleon project. No problem, the real Napoleon told a confederate in the city where he was hiding. All I have to do is stand up and explain who I am and all will be well.
His companion then led him through the city streets to a high wall, which both men climbed to its top. Looking over the other side, they saw people strolling through a garden--a number of them dressed as Napoleon. If you value your freedom, the confederate advised the fallen emperor, never say a word to anyone about your "real" identity or you will wind up like those people: locked in the local insane asylum.
For the past several months Saddam's doubles have faced a variation on this theme: Mr. Leys's protagonist had to prove he was Napoleon, whereas the Iraqi doubles have wanted to prove they were not Saddam. Now that need is gone. Could an enterprising man among them--loyal to a fault--seek to infiltrate the coalition guard and facilitate the real Saddam's daring escape? It would take a novelist to imagine such a thing, and it seems unlikely.
What's a double to do, then? A few months ago a London producer put out a call for Saddam lookalikes, for a play called "Follow My Leader." (It apparently has yet to open.) Surely more thespian Saddams will be needed: say, for a Miramax film ("Saddam in Love") or possibly a remake of Chaplin's "The Great Dictator." But there is really only one place for Saddam doubles at this point: Las Vegas.
It's a natural. OK, it's a little gaudier than Baghdad, though after seeing those pictures of Saddam's palaces I'm not so sure. But in every other respect the doubles would acclimate easily, with no culture shock. They've spent their lives in a world where the line between appearance and reality is hard to pin down, and what is Las Vegas all about if not that? (I once saw a a man mistake a handcrafted glass ceiling in the lobby of the Bellagio Hotel for plastic, not that he minded.)
A Vegas gig would give the doubles a chance to expand their repertoire beyond stiff hand-waving and firing a rifle over the heads of a crowd. They could hang out with the Elvis impersonators, getting pointers on voice projection and hip swivels. Or they could join the cast of "Legends in Concert" at the Imperial Palace Hotel, where look-alikes for Neil Diamond, Dolly Parton, Marilyn Monroe and other pop-culture icons mimic their greatest hits. Or they could take a leaf from the Three Tenors and play packed stadiums as "The Six Saddams."
Or they just might tap into the new, culturally upscale Las Vegas, with its Guggenheim museum and Steve Wynn art collection by giving readings from one of Saddam's best-selling (in Baghdad, anyway) novels. Last summer the BBC reported that copies of his fourth and final one, "Get Out of Here, Curse You," were discovered in the Ministry of Information. There is sure to be a lot of new interest in it, given the weekend's events.
On the other hand, given all the stress they've been under recently, the doubles might want to kick back for a while, casually hanging out on the Strip in their fatigues and moustaches, just signing autographs and posing with the tourists.
Who says there are no second acts in Iraqi lives?
Mr. Gibson is Leisure & Arts features editor of The Wall Street Journal.
