Submitted by Laura Miller on
"'Word got around the department that I was a good Arabic translator who did a great Saddam imitation,' recalls the Harvard grad student. 'Eventually, someone phoned me, asking if I wanted to help change the course of Iraq policy,'" writes Asia Times (Hong Kong) correspondent Ian Urbina. "So twice a week, for US$3,000 a month, the Iraqi student says, under condition of anonymity, that he took a taxi from his campus apartment to a Boston-area recording studio rented by the Rendon Group, a DC-based public relations firm with close ties to the US government. His job: translate and dub spoofed Saddam Hussein speeches and tongue-in-cheek newscasts for broadcast throughout Iraq."