What if it was one of the numerous doubles who stand in for the Iraqi dictator to spare him all those dull ceremonial duties, such as reviewing the troops, or entertaining foreign dignitaries or giving interviews to peacenik British ex-MPs?

Where was the tell-tale box of Quality Street chocolates that we heard that Saddam goes crazy for? That greying moustache looked genuine enough, but did you notice it didn’t match his jet-black hair and eyebrows? And only the previous evening Michael Jackson had sworn that his dimple, his high cheekbones and his Dulux-white skin tone were all genuine, too, and we all sniffed suspiciously.

Benn’s questions? Saddam’s answers? Saddam couldn’t have faced a softer grilling had he been being quizzed by an interviewer from his own state-run broadcaster. You could see Saddam thinking, “I knew it’d be easy, but not THIS easy!” After Martin Bashir’s interview with Michael Jackson on Monday, this was the second time in two days that we had witnessed a man so grateful to have been granted an audience with a renowned recluse that he happily tossed up patsy deliveries for his target to dab aside with a lazy stroke of the bat.

Benn: “Does Iraq have any weapons of mass destruction?”

Saddam: “Iraq has no weapons of mass destruction whatsoever.”

Benn: “There appear to be difficulties with inspectors . . .”

Saddam: “Every fair-minded person knows that as far as resolution 1441 is concerned, the Iraqis have been fulfilling their obligations . . . Iraq has no interest in war. No Iraqi official or ordinary citizen has expressed a wish to go to war . . . We admire the development of the peace movement around the world . . . We pray to God to empower all those working against war and for the cause of peace and security based on just peace for all.”

Jeremy Paxman won’t have been checking the redundancy terms in his Newsnight contract. And the Pentagon won’t have been holding its breath, either. Benn thinks that his interview with Saddam makes war less likely; that he has somehow prised a pearl of peace from an oyster shell that nobody else was able to shuck. Really? Is this the effects of jet-lag?

Like all gentle, open-minded people, the sort of people who say, ‘Tell me your view and I’ll give it a fair hearing’, Tony Benn wore the bearing of a man who knows he is always right, even if others — like you and me — might not realise it.

So as Saddam answered Benn’s questions (Saddam had not asked to vet them beforehand; but then again, if he couldn’t have guessed what Benn would ask, he’d have to possess the intelligence of a breath mint), Tony had that look that said, “You see? Saddam doesn’t want war. It’s just as I told you!”, Benn’s tone reminded you of the spoof chat-show host Mrs Merton asking Debbie McGee: “So what was it about the millionaire Paul Daniels that first attracted you to him?”

Here the rhetorical question that Benn just about restrained himself from asking was: “So what is it about your unaggressive ambitions that make us feel that Bush and Blair are two hotheads spoiling for a wholly unnecessary fight against a peace-loving nation, and will find any excuse they can to start one?”

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