U.S. Citizen Swaps E-mail With Saddam Hussein

Oct. 23, 2001 -- Christopher Love was familiar with the democratizing power of the Internet, but nothing could have prepared him for the shock he received when he logged onto his e-mail at work late last week.

Sitting innocuously in his "inbox" was an e-mail from Saddam Hussein, Iraq's undefeated strongman and until very recently, America's best-known villain.

But Saddam's e-mail, though 10 pages long, was somewhat short on villainy.

Replying to the Pennsylvania software engineer's well-meaning e-mail to the boss of Baghdad pleading for peace after the Sept. 11 attacks, Saddam sent Love a verbose reply expressing, among a great deal of other things, his personal sympathy for the victims of the attacks.

"All I can say is presenting (sic) my condolences to you," wrote Saddam in a message addressed to his "dear brother in the family of mankind." He then included the traditional Islamic condolence: "God has created us and to Him we return. May God give you a long life."

Iraq is the only Arab country not to have condemned the attacks in the United States, which killed more than 5,000 people.

"My jaw dropped," Love told ABCNEWS.com days after receiving Saddam's message, which was dated Oct. 18. Love picked it up from his e-mail inbox the next day, Friday. "I wasn't expecting a response. If you would have asked me what were the odds of my hearing from him, I would have said the odds of winning a lottery were better."

Saddam as a Virtual Pen Pal

The unlikely idea of getting into a cyber correspondence with Saddam Hussein came in the immediate aftermath of Sept. 11. Earlier this year, Love learned that a friend's father in Baghdad had died because he could not get the penicillin he needed.

Then came the terrorist attacks in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania, and with it, utter devastation. "Things got amplified then," he explained. "I was really upset and I was desperate to do something."

After a simple Web search, Love came across the Web site for the Iraqi News Agency, the country's official news service. He put together a small e-mail to the Webmasters of the INA site, inquiring if it were possible to send an e-mail to Saddam Hussein.

A few days later, he received a response from the INA saying the agency was awaiting his proposal.

"So I wrote a simple one-page letter, which I started by telling the Iraqi president how horrified and grief-stricken I was by Sept. 11, and I challenged him to take a stand and to join the world to fight terrorism."

Burning Cereals in Silos

Although Saddam did express his personal sympathy to the victims of the attacks, Love was not surprised to discover that asking the man who remains in power more than 10 years after the Gulf War to join the international "war" against terrorism was asking too much.

"Do you know, brother Christopher, that your administration, in its waragainst the people of Iraq, has been burning not only the cereals in silos, but even the harvest by throwing flares in order to make Iraqi people starve?" the e-mail read. "Iraq has been harmed severely by the fanaticism of others, including America."

Looking back on his unprecedented e-mail exchange, Love is not quite sure what to make of it. "I'm having mixed emotions about this," he confessed. "I'm trying to decide if anything good actually came of it. I think I received a standard Iraqi condolences-type format reply."

After the Exchange, Comes the Questioning

However, Love maintains he is satisfied with a message of personal sympathy from a man whom President Bush recently called "an evil man" amid speculation by analysts and news organizations that Iraq could be the next target in the U.S.-led fight against global terrorism.

"He did offer his personal condolences for the victims of the Sept 11 attacks and that alone made me feel good," said Love. "Apparently he would not extend the condolences to our government."

But not everyone is cheering the enterprising engineer from Willow Grove, Pa. Love's voice mail these days occasionally bears messages from people threatening to slit his throat for e-mailing the enemy.

For his part, Love maintains his motives were nothing short of patriotic. "My main motivation was to simply try to avoid more bloodshed and suffering," he said.

Getting in Touch With Bush

And though he's not quite sure if Saddam actually wrote the e-mail, he maintains it doesn't really matter. "It's only an e-mail — you can't be 100 percent sure. But there was emotion in it and whoever wrote it was trying to be sincere."

In the spirit of open communication, Love attempted to pass on his message from Saddam Hussein to President Bush. But it wasn't that easy.

"I went to the White House Web site and tried to send my letter to President Bush," he said. "But the message was too long, the Web site only allows for a limited-sized e-mail. So I told President Bush what I had done and that I had received his response, and I provided a link to the INA Web site, which had the letter posted, and offered to send him the e-mail."

So far, he hasn't heard from Bush.