Fatima Michelle Vieuchanger: Female French-Moroccan journalist who disguised herself as a man disguising himself as a woman in order to gain credibility with an elite U.S. commando squad allegedly trying to assasinate Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein during the 1991 Persian Gulf War. On assignment with L’Express Marrakech, Vieuchanger published riveting accounts (under the pseudonymous byline Michel Vieuchange) of her/his forays into Baghdad with the American commandos. Operating out of a suburban safe house, they stalked the Iraqi leader by day and night, using a stolen Iraqi Army jeep, a decrepit VW microbus, and racing camels to follow intelligence leads about Saddam’s whereabouts. After a CNN report showing a smiling Saddam reclining in a Winnebago, they targeted every RV in the Baghdad region. Saddam survived. On another occasion the squad commander got Vieuchanger to help disguise them all as Arab peasant women in order to infiltrate a street market where Saddam had supposedly set up temporary headquarters; to maintain her identity, Vieuchanger used a Ziploc plastic baggie under her robe to help her simulate urinating like a man with the others behind a vegetable tent. "The Americans knew that a ‘woman’ who could pass for Iraqi would be useful," she commented about her layers of gender deception, "but they never would have accepted me if they thought I was a real woman."
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