Dr. Wihaib had near daily contact with Saddam for the duration of his time in the position; toward the end he fell out of favor and was the target of several assassination attempts. He escaped from Iraq to London with the aid of British intelligence in 1993. He kept a relatively low profile for several years after that. Beginning in 2002 his name surfaced in news reports attached to descriptions of atrocities committed by Saddam and supporting the US led invasion of Iraq. His prior absence from Western media outlets led some (particularly in the online blogging community) to suspect that he was a fabrication of the American and British governments to provide disinformation to news sources. This rumor was, obviously, false.