WASHINGTON -- The CIA believes that Saddam Hussein's television appearance Monday is authentic, but possibly pretaped, providing no clear answer to the pressing question of whether the Iraqi president survived a "decapitation" strike by U.S. forces last week.
Even so, U.S. intelligence officials said the Baghdad government appears to be functioning after days of intensive bombing, suggesting that even if Saddam was seriously injured or killed, there has been no collapse of his regime.
A U.S. intelligence official noted that top members of Saddam's regime, including Deputy Prime Minister Tarik Aziz, continue to make public appearances.
"If the entire government collapsed, people would probably be reluctant to go out and talk about how swimmingly things are going," the official said.
Although "the regular army is not putting up much of a fight," the official said, the paramilitary forces known as the "fedayeen" who are loyal to Saddam, as well as some loyalists in his Baath Party, are striking in ways that suggest some level of coordination.
In his latest television appearance, Saddam's references to the shape of the war so far suggest the remarks are current. He notes, for instance, that the United States has attacked with ground troops, not only "using aircraft and rockets and missiles as they did before."
He congratulates the "Iraqi moujahedeen" for inflicting casualties on the invading allied forces and vows to drag out the war to turn it into a "quagmire" for the United States.
Later in the speech, Saddam praises a number of Iraqi military commanders and units involved in fighting in the south. But U.S. officials said some of those singled out by Saddam have already capitulated.
"Some of these people are already in U.S. custody," the official said, raising questions of whether Saddam's remarks were taped before the attacks.
White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said, "The latest tape gives no reason for anybody to think that this is anything fresh."
Britain's defense minister was more emphatic, saying the Iraqi leader's comments were not broadcast live. The British government has information that Saddam had prepared a number of television messages, Defense Minister Geoff Hoon said, suggesting that the Iraqi government may be trying to fool Iraqis with the broadcasts of his speeches.
"What I can say straight away is that those pictures were not live and therefore clearly there is still the possibility of Saddam Hussein's people issuing tape recordings," Hoon said. "We are well aware that he has spent many hours recently tape-recording various messages, so we have to do a little more analysis of what was actually said."
In the tape, Saddam wears his military uniform and appears to be standing before a white sheet that gives no indication of where he was when the tape was made.
The Saddam shown Monday also appears far more collected and coherent than the disheveled figure who appeared on Iraqi television several hours after the predawn attack Thursday.
Gone are the oversized glasses, the pallid complexion and the large notebook he flipped through while delivering his remarks, sometimes seeming to lose his place.
The CIA continues to field contradictory reports on whether Saddam and his sons were harmed in the strike on the palatial compound on the southern outskirts of Baghdad.
In Baghdad, Aziz insisted that Saddam and members of the Iraqi leadership are all safe. "Saddam Hussein is in total control of his country," Aziz said.
Seemingly emboldened by events of the past few days, in which allied forces have met with resistance on their march to Baghdad, Aziz taunted Vice President Dick Cheney and other U.S. officials, saying their predictions that the Iraqi army would crumble and its people hail the arrival of American troops are proving untrue.
Nevertheless, senior U.S. military officials said they continue to see signs that Saddam's control of his government and forces is slipping.
At the Pentagon, Maj. Gen. Stanley McChrystal said the U.S. military is "seeing evidence that orders that are being issued (by Iraq) are not being executed in many cases."
Separately, U.S. officials said that a supposed chemical weapons compound seized by U.S. forces near the city of Najaf on Sunday does not appear to have such materials and hasn't been a suspected site since the mid-1990s.