posted January 19, 2005 06:51 AM              

"Pteron cannot answer your questions jwhop. He / She doesn't have a clue"--pidaua

-----

it didnt seem to me that bush believed "clintons appointee" anymore than jwhop would...lol
but hmmmm....how to pawn it off on "joe public"? maybe just get limbaugh, hannity and foxnews started on it...yea!!!

******

Tenet's 'slam-dunk'

He was told the "things" the Iraqis were moving and concealing were probably WMD. Finding that "less than convincing," Bush asked for a more detailed briefing by CIA Deputy Director John E. McLaughlin, which took place on Dec. 21 , 2002.

McLaughlin's version used communications intercepts, satellite photos, diagrams and other intelligence.

"Nice try," Bush said when the CIA official was finished."I don't think this quite – it's not something that Joe Public would understand or would gain a lot of confidence from."

He then turned to Tenet, McLaughlin's boss, and said, "I've been told all this intelligence about having WMD, and this is the best we've got?"

"It's a slam-dunk case," Tenet replied, throwing his arms in the air.
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=38198

nice air ball george.....not even good enough to convince jr.... lol

"The problem with refuting information furnished by the leftist crowd is that they don't really believe what they say anyway. Anything that blemishes the opposition is fair game. If they see it, they think they can use it, no matter how unreliable the source."--jwhop

sounds like bush jr to me!!(and jwhop)
well at least "joe public" bought it!!!

Sqwuaaaawwk!! "tenet said it was a slam dunk" Sqwuaaaaaawkk!!

"We said we had no specific information on the types or quantities of weapons, agent, or stockpiles at Baghdad’s disposal."- - CIA Director George Tenet

----------

"Intelligence analysts never said there was an imminent threat from Iraq before the war."
- CIA Director George Tenet, speech, Feb. 5, 2004

"No terrorist state poses a greater or more immediate threat to the security of our people and the stability of the world than the regime of Saddam Hussein in Iraq."
- Donald Rumsfeld, testimony to Congress, Sept. 19, 2002

"The world is also uniting to answer the unique and urgent threat posed by Iraq."
- George W. Bush, Nov. 23, 2002

********

But make no mistake - as I said earlier - we have high confidence that they have weapons of mass destruction. That is what this war was about.- White House spokesman Ari Fleischer, press briefing, April 10, 2003

"We said we had no specific information on the types or quantities of weapons, agent, or stockpiles at Baghdad’s disposal."- - CIA Director George Tenet

"Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction. There is no doubt he is amassing them to use against our friends, against our allies, and against us." -- Vice President Cheney, Aug. 26, 2002.

"We believe [Hussein] has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons."
- Dick Cheney, NBC's Meet the Press, March 16, 2003

We know where they are. They're in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south, and north somewhat.
- Donald Rumsfeld, ABC interview, March 30, 2003

In the far Western part
Of south-east North Dakota
Lives a very fine animal
Called the Iota.

But I'll capture one
Who is even much finer
In the north-eastern west part
Of South Carolina.--Dr. Seuss "If I ran the Zoo"

*********

Bush's Iraq WMDs joke


The president could be seen bending over to peer at the floor of the Oval Office
US President George W Bush has sparked a political row by making a joke about the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
At a black-tie dinner for journalists, Mr Bush narrated a slide show poking fun at himself and other members of his administration.

One pictured Mr Bush looking under a piece of furniture in the Oval Office, at which the president remarked: "Those weapons of mass destruction have got to be here somewhere."

After another one, showing him scouring the corner of a room, Mr Bush said: "No, no weapons over there," he said.

And as a third picture, this time showing him leaning over, appeared on the screen the president was heard to say: "Maybe under here?"

The audience at Wednesday's 60th annual dinner of the Radio and Television Correspondents' Association obviously thought the quips hilarious - there were laughs all round - but the next morning, in the cold light of day, things looked far less amusing.

The joke about the fruitless search for Iraqi WMDs so far, Washington's prime justification for the US-led invasion, has been branded as tasteless and ill-judged.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3570845.stm

"I'll find it!" cried Horton "I'll find it or bust!
I SHALL find my friends on my small speck of dust!"
And clover, by clover, by clover he found
That the one that he sought for was just not around.--Dr. Seuss "Horton hears a Who!"

"But make no mistake - as I said earlier -...That is what this war was about."- White House spokesman Ari Fleischer

*******

or maybe this is what he really meant by slam dunk....??

Given time, given the number of prisoners now that we're interrogating, I'm confident that we're going to find weapons of mass destruction.
- Gen. Richard Myers, Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff, NBC Today Show interview, May 26, 2003

In the case of Khalid Sheik Mohammed, who is believed to have helped plan the September 11 attacks, the force CIA interrogators used included a technique known as water boarding, in which a prisoner is strapped down, forcibly pushed under water and made to believe he might drown. http://smh.com.au/articles/2004/05/13/1084289823726.html?oneclick=true

"where are the WMD in iraq??!!"

"how would i know? Al Qaeda has not cooperated in any way with Iraq."

I'll capture them fat and I'll capture them scrawny.
I'll capture a scraggle-foot Mulligatawny,
This beast is the beast that the brave chieftans ride
When they want to go fast to find someplace to hide.
A Mulligatawny is fine for my zoo
And so is a chieftan. I'll bring one back too.-Dr. Seuss "If I ran the Zoo"

"I’m not going to fire a $2 million missile at a $10 empty tent and hit a camel in the butt."--President Bush

posted January 20, 2005 03:23 PM              

LOL BUSH WON THE ELECTION MY A**.

ARE U ON DRUGS?

------------------
~*~ Cusp: Gemini/Cancer, Cancer rising, Taurus moon ~*~

Let's go...

posted January 20, 2005 03:45 PM              

quote:

---

Atlantic Myst
Knowflake
Posts: 138
From: New York City
Registered: Jan 2005
posted January 20, 2005 03:42 PM
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
There's nothing like some good pot.

---

posted January 20, 2005 11:47 PM              

Vice President Cheney admits ``miscalculation'' in Iraq
By Associated Press
Thursday, January 20, 2005

WASHINGTON - As he enters his second term, Vice President Cheney is admitting ``a miscalculation'' in the Iraq war.

On the Don Imus radio show this morning, Cheney said he thought Iraq would recover more quickly after the U-S invasion.

In the interview, Cheney had been asked to identify mistakes in the U-S war plan. The vice president said Saddam Hussein's brutality in putting down a revolt in 1991 ``made the situation tougher'' than the administration expected.

Cheney says he'd ``chalk that one up as a miscalculation.''

In the interview hours before his oath of office, Cheney said Iran now leads ``the world's potential trouble spots.''

But he says the administration would prefer to deal with Iran's nuclear programs through diplomacy instead of more war in the Middle East.

***********

posted January 22, 2005 12:00 AM              

NEW YORK — As the presidential election draws ever closer, rock, pop and country stars are amping up their efforts to strike a chord with voters and get fans to tune into the political process.
The pro-president “Your Country Your Vote” campaign involves country music artists on the “America Will Always Stand” album — including Darryl Worley, Randy Travis, Lee Ann Womack, Ricky Skaggs and others — telling people to vote in public service announcements. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,130290,00.html

Have You Forgotten
Darryl Worley
Written by Darryl Worley and Wynn Varble

I hear people saying we don't need this war
I say there's some things worth fighting for
What about our freedom and this piece of ground?
We didn't get to keep 'em by backing down
They say we don't realize the mess we're getting in
Before you start preaching
Let me ask you this my friend

CHORUS 1
Have you forgotten how it felt that day
To see your homeland under fire
And her people blown away?
Have you forgotten when those towers fell?
We had neighbors still inside
Going through a living hell
And you say we shouldn't worry 'bout Bin Laden
Have you forgotten?

They took all the footage off my T.V.
Said it's too disturbing for you and me
It'll just breed anger that's what the experts say
If it was up to me I'd show it every day
Some say this country's just out looking for a fight
After 9/11 man I'd have to say that's right

CHORUS 1
Have you forgotten how it felt that day
To see your homeland under fire
And her people blown away?
Have you forgotten when those towers fell?
We had neighbors still inside
Going through a living hell
And we vowed to get the ones behind Bin Laden
Have you forgotten?

I've been there with the soldiers
Who've gone away to war
And you can bet that they remember
Just what they're fighting for

CHORUS 2
Have you forgotten all the people killed?
Yes, some went down like heroes in that Pennsylvania field
Have you forgotten about our Pentagon?
All the loved ones that we lost
And those left to carry on
Don't you tell me not to worry 'bout Bin Laden
Have you forgotten?

Have you forgotten?
Have you forgotten?

posted January 25, 2005 12:18 AM              

And then Little cat A
Took the hat off HIS head.
"It is good I have some one
To help ME," he said
"This is Little Cat B.
And I keep him about,
And when I need help
Then I let him come out."

And then B said,
"I think we need Little Cat C.
That spot is too much
For the A cat and me.
But now,have no fear!
We will clean it away!
The three of us! Little Cats B,C, and A!"

posted January 25, 2005 06:15 PM              

also...if you go back and reread you might see where i've added some bits and pieces here and there to earlier posts in this thread where it seemed to fit......

maklhouf luckily my halting program kept my brain from locking up

posted February 01, 2005 09:34 PM              

Hamas and Hezzbola, supported by Iran and Syria are not going to be permitted to scuttle the peace plan. As I said, they're NEXT if they don't change their behavior and they know it--jwhop
But give us time Raine, there's still the Syrians and Iranians looming on the horizon if they don't stop sending their terrorists into Iraq to destabilize the country and prevent free elections there.--jwhop

*****

Germany [2] along with other Western countries (among them Britain, France, Italy, and the United States), provided Iraq with biological and chemical weapons and the precursors to nuclear capabilities. Much of Iraq's financial backing came from other Arab states, notably oil-rich Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. Starting in 1982 with Iranian success on the battle field, the United States changed its less announced policy of backing Iraq to a clear direct support, supplying it with intelligence, economic aid, normalizing relations with the government (broken during the 1967 Six-Day War), allegedly also supplying weapons [3] ). The United States also engaged in a series of naval battles with Iranian forces in 1987 and 1988. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran-Iraq_War

Saddam received key to city of Detroit in 1980
By Jennifer Brooks / The Detroit News
DETROIT -- Saddam Hussein has collected many things in his 24-year reign -- palaces, enemies. And the key to the city of Detroit.

Pastor Jacob Yasso, right, of Detroit's Sacred Heart Parish traveled to Iraq to give the keys to the city of Detroit to Saddam Hussein.

******

Iraq was not our enemy then, Iran was and this was before Saddam used chemical weapons on Iranian troops and the Kurds--jwhop

"In that visit, I cautioned him about the use of chemical weapons, as a matter of fact"--Donald Rumsfeld, President's General Advisory Committee on Arms Control - Reagan Administration (1982 - 1986);

Gonzalez's charges are simple and direct: Senior Bush administration officials went to great lengths to continue supporting Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and his unreliable regime long after it was prudent to do so.
U.S. officials insisted in 1989, for instance, on playing down the importance of a scandal involving an Atlanta-based bank and more than $5 billion in unauthorized loans to Iraq, including $900 million guaranteed by the U.S. government. They even intervened in the case to prevent indictment of the Central Bank of Iraq while the Persian Gulf War was raging.
U.S. Customs Service reports dated Sept. 21, 1989, and Oct. 20, 1989, pointed out that BNL was suspected of financing shipments of industrial machinery, military-type technology and various controlled chemicals to Iraq and providing loans `to various U.S. firms for the illegal export to Iraq of missile-related technology.' http://www.fas.org/spp/starwars/congress/1992/h920325wp.htm

*******

"We've not done any business in Iraq since U.N. sanctions were imposed on Iraq in 1990, and I had a standing policy that I wouldn't do that."---Dick Cheney the ABC-TV news program--"This Week" on July 30, 2000

Oil industry executives and confidential U.N. records showed, however, that Halliburton held stakes in two companies that signed contracts to sell more than $73 million in oil production equipment and spare parts to Iraq while Cheney was chairman and chief executive officer
In a July 30, 2000, interview on ABC-TV's "This Week," Cheney denied that Halliburton or its subsidiaries traded with Baghdad. Three weeks later, on the same program, he modified his response after being informed that a Halliburton spokesman had said that Dresser Rand and Ingersoll Dresser Pump traded with Iraq.

*******

"You go into Iraq and it's just heartbreaking to see what a vicious, Stalinist-type regime can do to people,"--Donald Rumsfeld

"He is a torturer, a murderer, and they had rape rooms, and this is a disgusting tyrant who deserves justice, the ultimate justice," Bush

He is a mass-murderer. He's used gas against his own people up in the north just three years ago. And he's used gas against the Iranians in "that war" that they had in the '80s. -- Casper W. Weinberger

I have known and worked closely with Colin Powell for many years. He has my highest respect. His presentation this week before the U.N. was brilliantly constructed, quite unanswerable, and to those with open minds, truly persuasive. After hearing Mr. Powell's airtight case against Saddam Hussein, there is only one question left: Why not invade Iraq?"-- Casper W. Weinberger The Wall Street Journal | February 7, 2003

******
QUESTION: (Inaudible) new nuclear facilities in Iran? Could you
perhaps sort of elaborate on the distinction between of Iran's pursuit
of weapons of mass destruction, Iraq's pursuit and North Korea's
pursuit of weapons of mass destruction?

DEPUTY SECRETARY ARMITAGE:Iran is a democracy. Iraq and North Korea
are not. http://www.usconsulate.org.hk/uscn/state/2002/121301.htm

*******
Cheney Once Pushed to Lift Iran Sanctions
- Friday October 08, 2004 8:49am
Washington (AP) - Vice President Dick Cheney (website - news - bio) , who has called Iran "the world's leading exporter of terror," pushed to lift U.S. trade sanctions against Tehran while chairman of Halliburton Co. in the 1990s. And his company's offshore subsidiaries also expanded business in Iran. http://www.wjla.com/news/stories/1004/178783.html

Bush is using US sanctions, 3rd party diplomacy and the threat of UN sanctions to get Iran to abandon it's nuclear weapons program--jwhop
I think everything in the power of Saudi Arabia, Syria and Iran is being done internally to make sure there is not another attack on the US--jwhop
Look for Iran to develop into a real representative governmental system within the foreseeable future.--jwhop

You seem to be the only one talking about invading Iran Petron. Why?--jwhop
The political theory is, The enemy of our enemy is our friend. --jwhop

*******

Upon an island hard to reach,
the East Beast sits upon his beach.
Upon the west beach sits the West Beast.
Each beach beast thinks he's the best beast.

Which beast is best?...Well, I thought at first
that the East was best and the West was worst.
Then I looked again from the west to the east
and I liked the beast on the east beach least.

--Dr. Seuss "Oh say can you say?"

sqwk!

You can't have it both ways.--jwhop

posted February 01, 2005 10:21 PM            

quote:

---

Germany [2] along with other Western countries (among them Britain, France, Italy, and the United States), provided Iraq with biological and chemical weapons

---

So much for the bull sh!t that the US supplied chemical weapons to Saddam. If we had, Saddam wouldn't have needed Frans van Anraat.

Of course, that won't stop those with their head up their @ss from continuing to make the accusation. Hello, Hello, pull it out, pull it out...like a good Boy Scout.

Dutch court to free 'Saddam's chemical fixer'

Ian Traynor
Saturday January 29, 2005
The Guardian

An appeal judge in The Hague has ordered the release of a Dutch businessman accused of supplying the chemicals to Saddam Hussein that enabled him to gas the Kurds.
The ruling is a setback for Dutch prosecutors seeking to bring their first case of involvement in genocide.

Frans van Anraat was arrested six weeks ago on suspicion of complicity in genocide. He is accused of supplying the chemicals that enabled the Iraqi dictator to make the mustard gas with which he killed and maimed thousands of Kurds in attacksin 1988. About 5,000 were killed in the town of Halabja alone.

Mr Van Anraat, 62, has never denied supplying the chemicals, but says he did not know what they were to be used for.

Officials and lawyers involved in the case say that the judge's decision reflects judicial reluctance to pursue such cases.

After a year-long investigation, the Dutch authorities arrested Mr Van Anraat early last month at his canal-side house in west Amsterdam.

US customs had Mr Van Anraat on their most wanted list for several years, and had issued an international arrest warrant for him alleging that he provided Saddam with 538 tonnes of a chemical solvent called thiodiglycol, or TDG, which is used in the textile industry and is also the main ingredient in the manufacture of mustard gas.

The Dutch say they have information indicating that Mr Van Anraat supplied more chemicals than the Americans suspect. Much of the Dutch information comes from UN weapons inspectors who investigated Saddam's chemical arsenal after the first Gulf war in 1991, and who questioned Mr Van Anraat at least three times in Baghdad in the mid-1990s. The inspectors believe that he was a key international middleman in Saddam's chemical weapons programme.

The judge's decision is understood to relate to custodial issues rather than the prosecution case against the businessman. Mr Van Anraat is expected to be released from custody next week, and a first public hearing is due in March.

The prosecution appears to be struggling to mount its case, however, and the Dutch authorities say it could be a year before they are able to bring the businessman to trial. Genocide is the gravest crime of all and the hardest to prove.

"This is a very complicated case," said Wim de Bruin, an official at the Dutch public prosecutor's office.

"It's the first time that a person is being prosecuted in the Netherlands for involvement in genocide that took place in another country a long time ago.

"We need to prove that there was genocide, that it happened with chemical weapons, that he supplied the precursors, and that he knew they would be used for genocide purposes," he said.

Last week, another judge ordered the release of an Afghan arrested in the Netherlands on suspicion of committing war crimes in his country under the communist regime in the 1980s.

Lawyers representing Kurdish victims are concerned that Mr Van Anraat might try to flee after his release.

The businessman has a record of disappearing. In 1989, he fled Milan for Baghdad while an Italian court was considering a US extradition request.

Then he fled Baghdad before the invading Americans arrived in April 2003. And last month he had his bags packed and an air ticket in his pocket when the Dutch arrested him.

Mr Van Anraat's passport has been taken away and he is under orders to be available for questioning following his release.

"This is a man who knows where to go and where not to go," said Liesbeth Zegveld, a lawyer representing Kurdish victims of the Iraqi gas attacks, who is involved in the case.

"There is a real danger that he will flee. What are the guarantees that he won't?"

There are also strong suspicions that Mr Van Anraat at least partly collaborated with Dutch intelligence during his 14 years in Baghdad, during which he was given an Iraqi identity and passport.

Dutch MPs following the case closely believe that there is a tussle inside the government between the justice ministry and prosecution service, who are determined to try Mr Van Anraat, and the security and intelligence services, who fear that their dirty laundry might be washed in public at any trial.

The house in west Amsterdam where he was arrested last month is believed to have been a Dutch intelligence "safe house". The intelligence services will neither confirm nor deny a relationship with Mr Van Anraat.

posted February 01, 2005 10:38 PM              

yea jwhop the dutch too.....just like the west german intelligence who worked closely with the cia while entire chemical factories were being shipped to iraq

posted February 01, 2005 11:00 PM              

Halliburton came under fire in the early '90s for supplying Libya and Iraq with oil drilling equipment which could be used to detonate nuclear weapons. Halliburton Logging Services, a former subsidiary, was charged with shipping six pulse neutron generators through Italy to Libya. In 1995, the company pled guilty to criminal charges that it violated the U.S. ban on exports to Libya. Halliburton was fined $1.2 million and will pay $2.61 million in civil penalties.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/onpolitics/articles/halliburtonprimer.html
*******

posted February 01, 2005 11:12 PM              

*****

"And the question in my mind is how many additional American casualties is Saddam worth?"
"And the answer is not very damned many. So I think we got it right, both when we decided to expel him from Kuwait, but also when the president made the decision that we'd achieved our objectives and we were not going to go get bogged down in the problems of trying to take over and govern Iraq."
All of a sudden you've got a battle you're fighting in a major built-up city, a lot of civilians are around, significant limitations on our ability to use our most effective technologies and techniques,"
"Once we had rounded him up and gotten rid of his government, then the question is what do you put in its place? You know, you then have accepted the responsibility for governing Iraq."--Dick Cheney

******
The United States originally hoped that Saddam would be overthrown in an internal coup,and used CIA assets in Iraq to organize a revolt. When a popular rebellion against Saddam began in southern Iraq, the United States did not support it due to the fact that the coalition refused to aid in an invasion (and also due to various policy changes within the United States). As a result, not only was the rebellion brutally subdued, but the main CIA operative who was tasked with organizing the revolt was disavowed and accused of "disobeying orders to not organize a revolt". http://psychcentral.com/psypsych/Gulf_War
*****
The "Highway of Death"
A peace conference was held in allied-occupied Iraq. At the conference, Iraq negotiated use of armed helicopters on their side of the temporary border. Soon after, these helicopters — and much of the Iraqi armed forces — were refocused toward fighting against a Shiite uprising in the south. In the North, Kurdish leaders took heart in American statements that they would support a people's uprising and began fighting, in the hopes of triggering a coup. However, when no American support was forthcoming, Iraqi generals remained loyal and brutally crushed the Kurdish troops. Millions of Kurds fled across the mountains to Kurdish areas of Turkey and Iran. These incidents would later result in no-fly zones in both the North and the South. In Kuwait, the Emir's dictatorship was restored and suspected Iraqi collaborators were attacked extra-judicially, especially Palestinians http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_War

Iraq did not use chemical weapons and the allied advance was much swifter than US generals expected. On February 26, Iraqi troops began retreating out of Kuwait, setting fire to Kuwaiti oil fields as they left. A long convoy of retreating Iraqi troops — along with Iraqi and Palestinian civilians — formed along the main Iraq-Kuwait highway. This convoy was bombed so extensively by the Allies that it came to be known as the Highway of Death. One hundred hours after the ground campaign started, President Bush declared a ceasefire and on February 27 declared that Kuwait had been liberated. Journalist Seymour Hersh has charged that, two days after the ceasefire was declared, American troops led by Barry McCaffrey engaged in a systematic massacre of retreating Iraqi troops, in addition to some civilians. McCaffrey has denied the charges and an army investigation has cleared him. (Forbes, Daniel)

Just suppose, for example,
you lived in Ga-Zayt
and got caught in that traffic
on Zayt Highway Eight!

posted February 01, 2005 11:58 PM            

The article you posted was written by an author trying to sell a book. It's the worst kind of tripe, innuendo, rumor and supposition masquerading as fact. But hey, he has another book in the works for all the America haters. You won't want to miss it.
United States covert policy in Central and South Asia

The Personal History of Saddam Hussein

The current leader of Iraq is was born on April 28, 1937, in a small village of al-Auja near the town of Takrit. His early child hood was spent in a mud hut in a mostly Sunni Muslim part of Iraq, which is approximately (100) one-hundred miles north of Baghdad. Hussein's father, Hussein al-Majid, died or abandoned the family (according to who is reporting the story), within a short time of his birth. Accurate records are difficult to obtain in a country where Hussein's birthday is celebrated as a national holiday.

He was reared alone by his mother Subha, until she took a second husband, Ibrahim Hassan. Hassan, often said to have been brutal and a thief, was a sheepherder by profession and enlisted Saddam in his ventures. According to a former personal secretary of Hussein, his step father abused Saddam and sent him to steal chicken and sheep to be sold. This pattern continued until 1947 when, at the age of ten, he was allowed to move in with his mother's brother, Khayrallah Tulfah, in Baghdad.

In Baghdad, Hussein began to learn more than reading and writing. His tutor, Khayrallah had been "cashiered" from the Iraqi army for supporting a "Pro-Nazi" coup attempt that failed. Khayrallah's bitterness towards the British and imperialism, soon was transferred to Saddam. In fact, some confidants of Hussein point to his relationship with Tulfah as a turning point in his political awareness. To demonstrate Tulfah's importance to Hussein, he was later made Mayor of Baghdad under the Hussein regime. Saddam finished intermediate school (roughly the equivalent of 9th Grade) at the age of sixteen, and attempted to be admitted to the prestigious Baghdad Military Academy.

Unfortunately, his poor grades prevented him from doing so, and he became more deeply involved in political matters. In 1956, he participated in a non-successful coup attempt against the monarchy of King Faisal II. In 1957, he joined the Baath party, a radical nationalist movement. In 1958, a non-Baathist group of army officers succeeded in overthrowing the King. The group was led by General Abdul Qassim. In 1959, Saddam and a group of Baathist supporters attempted to assassinate Gen. Qassim by a day-light machine-gun attack. The attack was unsuccessful, but it helped to place Hussein in a leadership position in the Baathist movement and furthered the process of nationalist political indoctrination. After the attack, in which Hussein is slightly wounded, he fled to Syria. From Syria, he went to Cairo, Egypt where he would spend the next four (4) years.

While receiving aid from Egypt, he finished high school at the age of twenty-four and continued his political education. While in Egypt, he was arrested on at least two occasions for threatening a fellow student and chasing another down the street with a knife, both for political differences. In 1961, he entered Cairo University School of Law, but did not finish his studies there. In 1963, a group of Baathist army officers tortured and assassinated General Qassim. This was done on Iraqi television. They also mutilated many of Qassim's devotees and showed their bodies (in close up) on the nightly news for more than one night. Saddam, hearing the news, quickly rushed back to Iraq to become involved in the revolution. And involved, he was, as both an interrogator and torturer at the infamous "Palace of the End", in the basement of the former palace of King Faisal.

According to reports by Hanna Batatu (a government reporter), Hussein rose quickly through the ranks, due to his extreme efficiency as a torturer. The Baathist party split in 1963 and Saddam had supported the "winner" in the latest party struggle. He was appointed by Michel Aflaq to be a member of the Baath Regional Command. In 1964, Hussein was jailed by some "rightist" military officers who opposed the Baathist takeover. Through other political influence provided by his older cousin, General Ahmad Hassan al-Bakr, Hussein became deputy Secretary-General of the Baathists in 1966.

In 1966, Hussein escaped from prison and set up a Baathist internal party security system known as the Jihaz Haneen. It was to serve as the continuation of his political and real rise to power in Iraq. In 1968, another major upheaval in Iraq gave Hussein the greatest opportunity for further advancement; his mentor, Gen. Bakr and the Baathist seized the government. Hussein was made Deputy Chairman of the Revolutionary Command Council, in charge of internal security.

At the age of thirty-one (31) he had acquired what could have been deemed the number two spot in the Baathist party. He would continue in the position for approximately the next ten years. During that time, he would continue to consolidate his power by appointing numerous family members to positions of authority in the Iraqi government. In his position of Deputy in Charge of Internal Security, he built an enormous security apparatus and had spies and informers everywhere in the circles of power in Iraq.

During this time, Hussein also began to accumulate the wealth and position that he so relished as a poor sheep-herder in the desert of al-Auja. He and his family, now firmly entrenched in the infrastructure of the country , began to control the country's oil and other industrial enterprises. With the help of his security network and several personal assassins, Hussein took control of many of the nation's leading businesses.

In 1978, Saddam had been working with othe r Arab nations to ostracize Egypt for it's diplomatic initiative in resolving Israel/Arab questions. An ally, President Hafez al-Assad of Syria, almost became the undoing of Hussein's ascension. If a Syrian/Iraqi federation were formed against Egypt, Assad, not Hussein, would rise to a position of greater power in the relationship. President Bakr would lead the federation with Assad as second in command. Hussein could not allow that to happen and began to urge the President to step down. Again with the help of his family and security apparatus, Hussein was able to accomplish his task.

On July 16, 1979, President Bakr resigned, officially due to health problems, but in reality a victim of Hussein's political in-fighting. Moving quickly to consolidate his power, he called a major Baathist meeting on July 22, 1979. During the meeting, various family members and other Hussein devotees urged that the party be "cleansed". Hussein then read a list of names and asked that they step outside. Once there, they are taken into custody.

A high-ranking member of the Revolutionary Command, the head of the labor unions, the leading Shiite member of the Command, and twenty (20) others are then systematically and personally killed by Hussein and his top party officials. During the next few days, reports indicate that as many as 450 other military officers, deputy prime ministers, and "non-party faithful" were rounded up and killed. This purge insured Hussein's consolidation of power in Iraq.

In 1980, Iraq invaded Iran and conducted an eight year war against one of his nearest neighbors and the home of Shiite fundamentalist Muslims. Again, because it appeared that the Shiites could be a threat to his continued dictatorship, the Kurds (Iraqi minority) were sprayed with poison gas for participating with the Iranians in an attempted overthrow of his country. The war continued for eight years of brutality and even repression of Hussein's own countrymen (especially the Kurds).

In 1988, after millions being killed, Iraq and Iran conduct a cease-fire and ended the bloodshed. By 1984, as many as 1.5 million Iraqis were supporters of Hussein and the Baathists. He continued to enlarge his security apparatus and army. In insidious ways, the party apparatus formed numerous government agencies to control and manipulate the citizens of Iraq. A statistical analysis of the population indicated that as many as fifty per cent of the Iraqis or a member of their family were employed by the government or military. The party and the people have become one. Hussein's domination of the country is complete.

Even the war against Iran didn't end the peoples support for Hussein, although some small protests did dampen the population's support for the conflict with Iran. Ultimately however, the war with Iran only strengthened Hussein's resolve and, in some eyes, causes him to become a "hero" of Arab nationalism. This brings us to the chapter of Hussein's life that has not been thoroughly researched and written. It involves the 1990, summer invasion of Kuwait over a dispute about oil prices and political control of the Persian Gulf. The subsequent United Nation Resolutions and United States intervention in the defense of Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and other nearby countries will undoubtedly impact on the history of Saddam Hussein.

Hussein has managed to survive the loss of a large portion of his army, a major psychological defeat, and control of the Northern and Southern part of Iraq, yet he continues in power in Iraq. His resilience is extraordinary, and so far he has managed to elude the allied powers, who would like to see him replaced as the leader of a major Middle-Eastern country. One thing is sure, Hussein is a man who is filled with pride. He is firmly entrenched in the history and culture of Iraq.

posted February 02, 2005 12:13 AM              

Saddam murdered his way to power with no help from America.--jwhop
****

Exclusive: Saddam key in early CIA plot
By Richard Sale
UPI Intelligence Correspondent

Published 4/10/2003 7:30 PM

U.S. forces in Baghdad might now be searching high and low for Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, but in the past Saddam was seen by U.S. intelligence services as a bulwark of anti-communism and they used him as their instrument for more than 40 years, according to former U.S. intelligence diplomats and intelligence officials.

United Press International has interviewed almost a dozen former U.S. diplomats, British scholars and former U.S. intelligence officials to piece together the following account. The CIA declined to comment on the report.

While many have thought that Saddam first became involved with U.S. intelligence agencies at the start of the September 1980 Iran-Iraq war, his first contacts with U.S. officials date back to 1959, when he was part of a CIA-authorized six-man squad tasked with assassinating then Iraqi Prime Minister Gen. Abd al-Karim Qasim.

In July 1958, Qasim had overthrown the Iraqi monarchy in what one former U.S. diplomat, who asked not to be identified, described as "a horrible orgy of bloodshed."

According to current and former U.S. officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, Iraq was then regarded as a key buffer and strategic asset in the Cold War with the Soviet Union. For example, in the mid-1950s, Iraq was quick to join the anti-Soviet Baghdad Pact which was to defend the region and whose members included Turkey, Britain, Iran and Pakistan.

Little attention was paid to Qasim's bloody and conspiratorial regime until his sudden decision to withdraw from the pact in 1959, an act that "freaked everybody out" according to a former senior U.S. State Department official.

Washington watched in marked dismay as Qasim began to buy arms from the Soviet Union and put his own domestic communists into ministry positions of "real power," according to this official. The domestic instability of the country prompted CIA Director Allan Dulles to say publicly that Iraq was "the most dangerous spot in the world."

In the mid-1980s, Miles Copeland, a veteran CIA operative, told UPI the CIA had enjoyed "close ties" with Qasim's ruling Baath Party, just as it had close connections with the intelligence service of Egyptian leader Gamel Abd Nassar. In a recent public statement, Roger Morris, a former National Security Council staffer in the 1970s, confirmed this claim, saying that the CIA had chosen the authoritarian and anti-communist Baath Party "as its instrument."

According to another former senior State Department official, Saddam, while only in his early 20s, became a part of a U.S. plot to get rid of Qasim. According to this source, Saddam was installed in an apartment in Baghdad on al-Rashid Street directly opposite Qasim's office in Iraq's Ministry of Defense, to observe Qasim's movements.

Adel Darwish, Middle East expert and author of "Unholy Babylon," said the move was done "with full knowledge of the CIA," and that Saddam's CIA handler was an Iraqi dentist working for CIA and Egyptian intelligence. U.S. officials separately confirmed Darwish's account.

Darwish said that Saddam's paymaster was Capt. Abdel Maquid Farid, the assistant military attaché at the Egyptian Embassy who paid for the apartment from his own personal account. Three former senior U.S. officials have confirmed that this is accurate.

The assassination was set for Oct. 7, 1959, but it was completely botched. Accounts differ. One former CIA official said that the 22-year-old Saddam lost his nerve and began firing too soon, killing Qasim's driver and only wounding Qasim in the shoulder and arm. Darwish told UPI that one of the assassins had bullets that did not fit his gun and that another had a hand grenade that got stuck in the lining of his coat.

"It bordered on farce," a former senior U.S. intelligence official said. But Qasim, hiding on the floor of his car, escaped death, and Saddam, whose calf had been grazed by a fellow would-be assassin, escaped to Tikrit, thanks to CIA and Egyptian intelligence agents, several U.S. government officials said.

Saddam then crossed into Syria and was transferred by Egyptian intelligence agents to Beirut, according to Darwish and former senior CIA officials. While Saddam was in Beirut, the CIA paid for Saddam's apartment and put him through a brief training course, former CIA officials said. The agency then helped him get to Cairo, they said.

One former U.S. government official, who knew Saddam at the time, said that even then Saddam "was known as having no class. He was a thug -- a cutthroat."

In Cairo, Saddam was installed in an apartment in the upper class neighborhood of Dukki and spent his time playing dominos in the Indiana Café, watched over by CIA and Egyptian intelligence operatives, according to Darwish and former U.S. intelligence officials.

One former senior U.S. government official said: "In Cairo, I often went to Groppie Café at Emad Eldine Pasha Street, which was very posh, very upper class. Saddam would not have fit in there. The Indiana was your basic dive."

But during this time Saddam was making frequent visits to the American Embassy where CIA specialists such as Miles Copeland and CIA station chief Jim Eichelberger were in residence and knew Saddam, former U.S. intelligence officials said.

Saddam's U.S. handlers even pushed Saddam to get his Egyptian handlers to raise his monthly allowance, a gesture not appreciated by Egyptian officials since they knew of Saddam's American connection, according to Darwish. His assertion was confirmed by former U.S. diplomat in Egypt at the time.

In February 1963 Qasim was killed in a Baath Party coup. Morris claimed recently that the CIA was behind the coup, which was sanctioned by President John F. Kennedy, but a former very senior CIA official strongly denied this.

"We were absolutely stunned. We had guys running around asking what the hell had happened," this official said.

But the agency quickly moved into action. Noting that the Baath Party was hunting down Iraq's communist, the CIA provided the submachine gun-toting Iraqi National Guardsmen with lists of suspected communists who were then jailed, interrogated, and summarily gunned down, according to former U.S. intelligence officials with intimate knowledge of the executions.

Many suspected communists were killed outright, these sources said. Darwish told UPI that the mass killings, presided over by Saddam, took place at Qasr al-Nehayat, literally, the Palace of the End.

A former senior U.S. State Department official told UPI: "We were frankly glad to be rid of them. You ask that they get a fair trial? You have to get kidding. This was serious business."

A former senior CIA official said: "It was a bit like the mysterious killings of Iran's communists just after Ayatollah Khomeini came to power in 1979. All 4,000 of his communists suddenly got killed."

British scholar Con Coughlin, author of "Saddam: King of Terror," quotes Jim Critchfield, then a senior Middle East agency official, as saying the killing of Qasim and the communists was regarded "as a great victory." A former long-time covert U.S. intelligence operative and friend of Critchfield said: "Jim was an old Middle East hand. He wasn't sorry to see the communists go at all. Hey, we were playing for keeps."

Saddam, in the meantime, became head of al-Jihaz a-Khas, the secret intelligence apparatus of the Baath Party.

The CIA/Defense Intelligence Agency relation with Saddam intensified after the start of the Iran-Iraq war in September of 1980. During the war, the CIA regularly sent a team to Saddam to deliver battlefield intelligence obtained from Saudi AWACS surveillance aircraft to aid the effectiveness of Iraq's armed forces, according to a former DIA official, part of a U.S. interagency intelligence group.

This former official said that he personally had signed off on a document that shared U.S. satellite intelligence with both Iraq and Iran in an attempt to produce a military stalemate. "When I signed it, I thought I was losing my mind," the former official told UPI.

A former CIA official said that Saddam had assigned a top team of three senior officers from the Estikhbarat, Iraq's military intelligence, to meet with the Americans.

According to Darwish, the CIA and DIA provided military assistance to Saddam's ferocious February 1988 assault on Iranian positions in the al-Fao peninsula by blinding Iranian radars for three days.

The Saddam-U.S. intelligence alliance of convenience came to an end at 2 a.m. Aug. 2, 1990, when 100,000 Iraqi troops, backed by 300 tanks, invaded its neighbor, Kuwait. America's one-time ally had become its bitterest enemy.

posted February 02, 2005 12:25 AM            

No and I mean NO CIA, DIA, NSA or other American intelligence service or officer would ever talk to reporters or anyone else without the proper security clearance about covert operations. And if they did violate their written oath of secrecy, they would get the ax...perhaps literally.

You do realize don't you, that the information you're putting forth as fact, would be classified Top Secret...or higher, perhaps Code Word.

You would have us believe that the CIA sought out Saddam when he was a 22 year old, of no particular importance, education or skill...when the CIA had their choice of mature, hardened intelligence types for a hit squad already within the government of Iraq who hated the regime in power.

posted February 02, 2005 12:45 AM              

"The CIA declined to comment on the report"

posted February 02, 2005 01:07 AM              

1963

Quasim's government is overthrown in a January coup which brings to power the Baathists for the first time. The Arab nationalist Baath party favours the joining together of Iraq, Egypt and Syria in one Arab nation. In the same year, the Baath also come to power in Syria, although the Syrian and Iraqi parties subsequently split.

The Baath strengthen links with the United States, suspected by many of encouraging the coup. During the coup, demonstrators are mown down by tanks, initiating a period of ruthless persecution during which up to 10,000 people are imprisoned, many of them tortured. The CIA help to supply intelligence on communists and radicals to be rounded up. In addition to the 149 officially executed, up to 5000 are killed in the terror, many buried alive in mass graves. The new government continues the war on the Kurds, bombarding them with tanks, artillery and from the air, and bulldozing villages.
http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/Senate/7672/iraq.html

Regime Change: How the CIA put Saddam's Party in Power
From Richard Sanders, 24 October 2002
http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/51/217.html

The butchery began as soon as the lists reached Baghdad. No-one was spared. Even pregnant women and elderly men were killed. Some were tortured in front of their children. According to the author, Saddam who 'had rushed back to Iraq from exile in Cairo to join the victors, was personally involved in the torture of leftists in the separate detention centres for fellaheen [peasants] and the Muthaqafeen or educated classes.'

King Hussain of Jordan, who maintained close links with the CIA, says the death lists were relayed by radio to Baghdad from Kuwait, the foreign base for the Iraqi coup. According to him, a secret radio broadcast was made from Kuwait on the day of the coup, February 8, 'that relayed to those carrying out the coup the names and addresses of communists there, so they could be seized and executed.'

The CIA's royal collaborator also gives an insight into how closely the Ba'athist party and American intelligence operators worked together during the planning stages. 'Many meetings were held between the Ba'ath party and American intelligence--the most critical ones in Kuwait,' he says.