Osama Bin Laden Is Dead
Osama bin Laden: A dead nemesis perpetuated by the US government
Bin Laden's voice was detected regularly until [14 December 2001] by intelligence operatives monitoring radio transmissions in Tora Bora, according to the Pentagon [details]. Since then, nothing has been heard from the al-Qa'eda leader and President Bush has hinted in private that bin Laden's silence could mean he has been killed. [Telegraph, 12/28/2001]
Osama bin Laden is dead. The news first came from sources in Afghanistan and Pakistan almost six months ago: the fugitive died in December [2001] and was buried in the mountains of southeast Afghanistan. Pakistan's president, Pervez Musharraf, echoed the information. The remnants of Osama's gang, however, have mostly stayed silent, either to keep Osama's ghost alive or because they have no means of communication. Click for full sized image
With an ego the size of Mount Everest, Osama bin Laden would not have, could not have, remained silent for so long if he were still alive. He always liked to take credit even for things he had nothing to do with. Would he remain silent for nine months and not trumpet his own survival? [New York Times. July 11, 2002]
Bin Laden has often been reported to be in poor health. Some accounts claim that he is suffering from Hepatitis C, and can expect to live for only two more years. According to Le Figaro, last year [2000] he ordered a mobile dialysis machine to be delivered to his base at Kandahar in Afghanistan. [Guardian]
Peter Bergen: Bin Laden has aged 'enormously'
This is a man who was clearly not well. I mean, as you see from these pictures here, he's really, by December [2001] he's looking pretty terrible.
Healthy bin Laden
Bin Laden December 27, 2001 video
But by December, of course, that tape that was aired then, he's barely moving the left side of his body. So he's clearly got diabetes. He has low blood pressure. He's got a wound in his foot. He's apparently got dialysis ... for kidney problems. [CNN]
The [December 27, 2001 video] was dismissed by the Bush administration ... as sick propaganda possibly designed to mask the fact the al-Qa'eda leader was already dead. "He could have made the video and then ordered that it be released in the event of his death," said one White House aide. [Telegraph]
Pakistan's Musharraf: Bin Laden probably dead
Pakistan's president says he thinks Osama bin Laden is most likely dead because the suspected terrorist has been unable to get treatment for his kidney disease.
[A Bush administration official] said U.S. intelligence is that bin Laden needs dialysis every three days and "it is fairly obvious that that could be an issue when you are running from place to place, and facing the idea of needing to generate electricity in a mountain hideout." [CNN]
Renal dialysis -- talking about hemodialysis -- is something that really is reserved for patients in end-stage renal failure. That means their kidneys have just completely shut down. The most common cause of something like that would be something like diabetes and hypertension. Once that's happened, if you're separated from your dialysis machine -- and incidentally, dialysis machines require electricity, they're going to require clean water, they're going to require a sterile setting -- infection is a huge risk with that. If you don't have all those things and a functioning dialysis machine, it's unlikely that you'd survive beyond several days or a week at the most. [CNN]
Karzai: bin Laden 'probably' dead
Osama bin Laden is "probably" dead, but former Taliban leader Mullah Omar is alive, Afghan President Hamid Karzai has said. [CNN]
FBI: Bin Laden 'probably' dead
The US Federal Bureau of Investigation's counter-terrorism chief, Dale Watson, says he thinks Osama bin Laden is "probably" dead. [BBC]
Magazine runs what it calls bin Laden's will
The editor-in-chief of a London-based Arab news magazine said a purported will it published Saturday was written late last year [2001] by Osama bin Laden, and shows "he's dying or he's going to die soon." [CNN]
Usama bin Laden has died a peaceful death due to an untreated lung complication, the Pakistan Observer reported, citing a Taliban leader who allegedly attended the funeral of the Al Qaeda leader. "The Coalition troops are engaged in a mad search operation but they would never be able to fulfill their cherished goal of getting Usama alive or dead," the source said. [FOX News]
Translation of Funeral Article in Egyptian Paper:
al-Wafd, Wednesday, December 26, 2001 Vol 15 No 4633
News of Bin Laden's Death and Funeral 10 days ago
A prominent official in the Afghan Taleban movement announced yesterday the death of Osama bin Laden, the chief of al-Qa'da organization, stating that binLaden suffered serious complications in the lungs and died a natural and quiet death. [Welfare State]
Osama bin who?
Israel does not view bin Laden as a threat. [Janes]
Israeli intelligence: Bin Laden is dead, heir has been chosen
Israeli sources said Israel and the United States assess that Bin Laden probably died in the U.S. military campaign in Afghanistan in December. They said the emergence of new messages by Bin Laden are probably fabrications, Middle East Newsline reported. [World Tribune]
When you hear a threat which is "probably" made by bin Laden, just remember that he's "probably" dead.
Also think about who benefits from your believing he's alive
"Osama bin Laden"
Fitter than ever in 2004
[youtube:2lhq5mjz]
Bin Laden's voice was detected regularly until [14 December 2001] by intelligence operatives monitoring radio transmissions in Tora Bora, according to the Pentagon [details]. Since then, nothing has been heard from the al-Qa'eda leader and President Bush has hinted in private that bin Laden's silence could mean he has been killed. [Telegraph, 12/28/2001]
Osama bin Laden is dead. The news first came from sources in Afghanistan and Pakistan almost six months ago: the fugitive died in December [2001] and was buried in the mountains of southeast Afghanistan. Pakistan's president, Pervez Musharraf, echoed the information. The remnants of Osama's gang, however, have mostly stayed silent, either to keep Osama's ghost alive or because they have no means of communication. Click for full sized image
With an ego the size of Mount Everest, Osama bin Laden would not have, could not have, remained silent for so long if he were still alive. He always liked to take credit even for things he had nothing to do with. Would he remain silent for nine months and not trumpet his own survival? [New York Times. July 11, 2002]
Bin Laden has often been reported to be in poor health. Some accounts claim that he is suffering from Hepatitis C, and can expect to live for only two more years. According to Le Figaro, last year [2000] he ordered a mobile dialysis machine to be delivered to his base at Kandahar in Afghanistan. [Guardian]
Peter Bergen: Bin Laden has aged 'enormously'
This is a man who was clearly not well. I mean, as you see from these pictures here, he's really, by December [2001] he's looking pretty terrible.
Healthy bin Laden
Bin Laden December 27, 2001 video
But by December, of course, that tape that was aired then, he's barely moving the left side of his body. So he's clearly got diabetes. He has low blood pressure. He's got a wound in his foot. He's apparently got dialysis ... for kidney problems. [CNN]
The [December 27, 2001 video] was dismissed by the Bush administration ... as sick propaganda possibly designed to mask the fact the al-Qa'eda leader was already dead. "He could have made the video and then ordered that it be released in the event of his death," said one White House aide. [Telegraph]
Pakistan's Musharraf: Bin Laden probably dead
Pakistan's president says he thinks Osama bin Laden is most likely dead because the suspected terrorist has been unable to get treatment for his kidney disease.
[A Bush administration official] said U.S. intelligence is that bin Laden needs dialysis every three days and "it is fairly obvious that that could be an issue when you are running from place to place, and facing the idea of needing to generate electricity in a mountain hideout." [CNN]
Renal dialysis -- talking about hemodialysis -- is something that really is reserved for patients in end-stage renal failure. That means their kidneys have just completely shut down. The most common cause of something like that would be something like diabetes and hypertension. Once that's happened, if you're separated from your dialysis machine -- and incidentally, dialysis machines require electricity, they're going to require clean water, they're going to require a sterile setting -- infection is a huge risk with that. If you don't have all those things and a functioning dialysis machine, it's unlikely that you'd survive beyond several days or a week at the most. [CNN]
Karzai: bin Laden 'probably' dead
Osama bin Laden is "probably" dead, but former Taliban leader Mullah Omar is alive, Afghan President Hamid Karzai has said. [CNN]
FBI: Bin Laden 'probably' dead
The US Federal Bureau of Investigation's counter-terrorism chief, Dale Watson, says he thinks Osama bin Laden is "probably" dead. [BBC]
Magazine runs what it calls bin Laden's will
The editor-in-chief of a London-based Arab news magazine said a purported will it published Saturday was written late last year [2001] by Osama bin Laden, and shows "he's dying or he's going to die soon." [CNN]
Usama bin Laden has died a peaceful death due to an untreated lung complication, the Pakistan Observer reported, citing a Taliban leader who allegedly attended the funeral of the Al Qaeda leader. "The Coalition troops are engaged in a mad search operation but they would never be able to fulfill their cherished goal of getting Usama alive or dead," the source said. [FOX News]
Translation of Funeral Article in Egyptian Paper:
al-Wafd, Wednesday, December 26, 2001 Vol 15 No 4633
News of Bin Laden's Death and Funeral 10 days ago
A prominent official in the Afghan Taleban movement announced yesterday the death of Osama bin Laden, the chief of al-Qa'da organization, stating that binLaden suffered serious complications in the lungs and died a natural and quiet death. [Welfare State]
Osama bin who?
Israel does not view bin Laden as a threat. [Janes]
Israeli intelligence: Bin Laden is dead, heir has been chosen
Israeli sources said Israel and the United States assess that Bin Laden probably died in the U.S. military campaign in Afghanistan in December. They said the emergence of new messages by Bin Laden are probably fabrications, Middle East Newsline reported. [World Tribune]
When you hear a threat which is "probably" made by bin Laden, just remember that he's "probably" dead.
Also think about who benefits from your believing he's alive
"Osama bin Laden"
Fitter than ever in 2004
[youtube:2lhq5mjz]
Comments
10/16/2002: Israeli sources said Israel and the United States assess that Bin Laden probably died in the U.S. military campaign in Afghanistan in December. They said the emergence of new messages by Bin Laden are probably fabrications, Middle East Newsline reported. [World Tribune]
11/19/2002: Bin Laden Tape Is Genuine, U.S. Experts Conclude
United States intelligence officials have concluded that a recently recorded audiotape that was broadcast on an Arab television network last week is genuine and contains the voice of Osama bin Laden, apparently ending months of debate in the government over whether the elusive terrorist leader is still alive. [New York Times]
11/30/2002: Swiss scientists: "The recording is a fake"
Scientists in Switzerland say they are almost certain that an audio tape attributed to Osama bin Laden is a fake. ... Researchers at the Dalle Molle Institute for Perceptual Artificial Intelligence, in Lausanne, believe the message was recorded by an impostor.
In a study commissioned by France 2 television, researchers built a computer model of Bin Laden's voice, based on an hour of genuine recordings. Using voice recognition systems being developed for banking security, they tested the model against 20 known recordings of Bin Laden. The system correctly identified his voice in 19 of them.
This meant there was only a 5% risk of error in their conclusion that the latest tape is a fake, Professor Hervé Bourlard, the institute's director, told the Guardian yesterday. [Guardian]
12/2/2003: Swiss Scientists: "Oops. We won't verify other tapes"
Swiss researchers who last November analysed a tape attributed to Osama bin Laden say they won’t be scrutinising the latest recording broadcast by the Arabic television network, Al-Jazeera. The Swiss analysts said the previous tape was almost certainly faked, despite US claims to the contrary. The Dalle Molle Institute for Perceptual Artificial Intelligence (Idiap) in Martigny told swissinfo on Wednesday that it had no intention of analysing the latest tape. [swissinfo]
Voice Cloning - Software Recreates Voices Of Living & Dead
Voice Changer Software changes man voice to hundreds of woman voices in realtime and vice versa to disguise voice totally in voice chat and PC phone. You can freely adjust voice settings and apply effects to enhance sex appeal or characteristics. Built-in Voice Comparator helps simulate people's voices by comparing and hinting. [sharewareriver]
Prophetic words, 17 December, 2003: Madeleine Albright: Bush Planning Bin Laden October Surprise
Wednesday, Dec. 17, 2003 1:22 a.m. EST
Madeleine Albright: Bush Planning Bin Laden October Surprise
It was bad enough on Monday when Washington state Congressman "Baghdad" Jim McDermott suggested that President Bush could have captured Saddam Hussein long ago, but moved only when the news would have had maximum political effect.
But now, former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright is telling reporters that the Bush administration may already have captured Osama bin Laden and will release the news just before next year's presidential election.
On Fox News Channel's "Special Report with Brit Hume," Roll Call reporter Morton Kondracke recounted Albright's comments to him during an encounter before Tuesday night's broadcast, while she was waiting in the green room to appear on another show.
Kondracke said the former Clinton official approached him and asked, "Do you suppose that the Bush administration has Osama bin Laden hidden away somewhere and will bring him out before the election?"
Kondracke said that Albright didn't seem to be joking, explaining, "She was not smiling."
He shot back, "You can't seriously believe that."
Albright replied that she thought a bin Laden October Surprise orchestrated by Bush was "a possibility."
Reacting to Albright's bizarre outburst, former Reagan administration drug czar Bill Bennett told Fox News Channel's "Hannity & Colmes": "It's nuts. It's staggering. It's paranoid.
"Maybe this is the style of thinking she'd grown accustomed to in the Clinton administration," he added. "Shame on her for saying that, as a former secretary of state of the United States."
http://archive.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2003/12/17/15126.shtml
The Fake 2004 Bin Laden Video Tape
Bin Laden video threatens America
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3966741.stm
Close (closer than the last phony) but no cigar. Note the shape of the cheeks and the width of the nose.
His arms and hands are in view and appear uninjured, whereas it was reported that the real Osama's left arm was severely injured at Tora Bora.
The genuine bin Laden's last video appearance was late in 2001:
"The big difference is that he's aged enormously between '97 and October of last year [2001]. ... So he's clearly got diabetes. He has low blood pressure. He's got a wound in his foot. He's apparently got dialysis ... for kidney problems." [CNN 2/1/2002]
Bin Laden's beard was much whiter than on Nov 3, the last time al-Jazeera broadcast a video of him, and he appeared much older than his 44 years. Lack of sunlight and a poor diet seemed to have taken a toll on him. [Telegraph 12/28/2001]
Bin Laden "aged enormously" between 1997 & 2001 due to kidney problems, lack of sunlight and a poor diet, but between 2001 & 2004 he "unaged". Truly amazing.
President Bush said of the 2004 tape...
"Let me make this very clear. Americans will not be intimidated or influenced by an enemy of our country. I'm sure Senator Kerry agrees with this." The American people were at war and would prevail, he said. [BBC News]
...this is somewhat different to the Bush administration's response to the genuine bin Laden video released in 2001:
The recording was dismissed by the Bush administration yesterday as sick propaganda possibly designed to mask the fact the al-Qa'eda leader was already dead. "He could have made the video and then ordered that it be released in the event of his death," said one White House aide. [Telegraph]
The 2004 video certainly helped Bush's election poll numbers:
President Bush has opened a six-point lead over John Kerry in the first opinion poll to include sampling taken after the new Osama bin Laden videotape was broadcast on Friday night. [Telegraph 10/31/04]
Even Walter Cronkite found the video incredibly convenient for the Bush administration.
Consider this: if this was the real Osama, didn't his appearance prove that Bush has wasted two hundred billion dollars and a thousand American lives (plus 100,000 Iraqi lives) without making us any safer from Osama? If the 2004 tape were genuine, wouldn't it prove that Bush is a total failure in his own "war on terror"?
http://www.waketheflockup.com/WRHARTICLES/osama_dead.html
[youtube:2djqlrvt]
This is one of the most ridicule things I've ever seen and heard. These tapes are a monumental fraud. They make believe to the world that the guy is still alive and perpetrate crimes in the name of freedom.
In a way it shows us how far they are capable to go in order to achieve their goals. Ridicule doesn't kill guns do that's for sure.
My thoughts exactly! What a mess the sadist created. <!-- s:x -->:x<!-- s:x -->
I am not getting the truth. I got it a long time time ago. <!-- s8-) -->8-)<!-- s8-) -->
Indeed we have not seen his dead body but there are more elements proving he's dead than that he's alive. Now dead or alive the man is used as a scarecrow and the result is the same.
The most likely reason that it is so hard to accept that 911 and many other "Conspiracy Theories" are not being widely accepted can be attributed to Cognitive Dissonance
Cognitive dissonance is an uncomfortable feeling caused by holding two contradictory ideas simultaneously. The theory of cognitive dissonance proposes that people have a motivational drive to reduce dissonance by changing their attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors, or by justifying or rationalizing them. It is one of the most influential and extensively studied theories in social psychology.
Dissonance occurs when a person perceives a logical inconsistency in their beliefs, when one idea implies the opposite of another. The dissonance might be experienced as guilt, anger, frustration, or even embarrassment. The idea of "sour grapes"—from the fable The Fox and the Grapes by Aesop (ca. 620–564 BCE), where in order to resolve the cognitive dissonance, the fox decides that the grapes he is unable to reach are probably not ripe enough to eat anyway. This illustrates an example of cognitive dissonance: desiring something, then criticizing it because it proves unattainable, a phenomenon that Jon Elster calls "adaptive preference formation."
A powerful cause of dissonance is an idea in conflict with a fundamental element of the self-concept, such as "I am a good person" or "I made the right decision." The anxiety that comes with the possibility of having made a bad decision can lead to rationalization, the tendency to create additional reasons or justifications to support one's choices. A person who just spent too much money on a new car might decide that the new vehicle is much less likely to break down than his or her old car. This belief may or may not be true, but it would reduce dissonance and make the person feel better. Dissonance can also lead to confirmation bias, the denial of dis-confirming evidence, and other ego defense mechanisms.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_dissonance
But I say it's time to...
Please don't diagnose what I may or may not believe. That is not nice. I am quite capable of doing that all by my self. All I am saying is that people need to be careful of what they push on others as truth because it may not be truth at all. If it's not truth than what you are doing is no better than the tabloids that push their slanted agendas in order for others (who may be less willing to do their own research and come to their own conclusions) to grasp on to. I'm not saying that is the case here but I am saying that it happens a lot. And no more responses to my comment either please. Thank you.
I am presenting the truth, I have given multiple links to multiple sources in every single post.
What would be my agenda? What have I to gain?
In actuality, I am receiving more negativity and ridicule so how is that gaining anything?
Maybe I honestly care and realize that we are headed into a nightmare unless we, together, become proactive and knowledgeable about what has really been going on.
I personally would be extremely happy if people researched for themselves and came to their own conclusions. Providing information and my opinion, after extensive research, is not trying to make anyone believe anything but prompting others to research for themselves or provide evidence which counters the evidence in the links I have already provided.
I am not diagnosing anyone or what they believe. I made a general statement, backed by extensive research as to why many people can not accept that 911 was not as it has been presented to the public and other theories such as Bin Laden is dead are not accepted, even when presented with extensive evidence contradicting the official story.
Cognitive dissonance is one of the most influential and extensively studied theories in social psychology.
This is a discussion board, one makes a comment and then another responds. You are free to disagree with any comment but expect a comment in response. If you do not want a response to your comment than simply don't comment and you won't receive one.
@ voiceofthesilent, may be he's alive ??? then maybe 9/11 was not an inside job ? maybe Saddam had mass weapon of destruction ? maybe Bush did the right thing ? maybe all these wars are for a good cause ? ( not for oil ? ) maybe Israel is doing a great job ? maybe NWO is a lie ? maybe illuminati is just a joke ? maybe Michael did die on 25th june ? just maybe who knows............. let's watch TV and believe what media is feeding us and forget what Michael wants us to see.........
I heard about that theory that maybe the real Saddam Hussein was in reality a part of it all, and that a double has been killed. I have not investigated enough but my first thought is why would the US Gov keep him alive and kill a double instead? They don't care that much about people's lives. I then thought that maybe they were unable to find real Saddam and then killed a double for "public opinion" to claim look how good we are we got him. Now the real one would keep in hiding to happy to be safe...Well it's just my imagination. I really don't know but your suggestion is in the field of possibilities.
I believe the real Saddam Hussein was executed. He had served his purpose, he knew too much, he defied the US, he was no longer controlled and he was a liability. He needed to be silenced permanently.
Saddam Hussein: America's Man in Iraq
by Helen & Harry Highwater, Unknown News Dec. 30, 2006
Obviously and of course, Saddam Hussein belongs in the lowest circle of Dante's Hell, and now, that's where he is. And most of the awful things we've been told about his years in
Saddam's future is in God or Allah's hands, but Iraq's future remains a large question mark.
Simply put, Saddam Hussein's brutal reign was made by the USA. He worked for the CIA before be became politically prominent in Iraq. He was one of America's closet Mideast allies during the 1980s, and received substantial US military and financial aid.
When you hear references to his tyranny and cruelty, the accounts are generally true —he was one hell of a bastard. The 'unknown news', though, is that at the peak of Saddam's tyranny and cruelty, the Reagan administration didn't just tolerate having Saddam in charge of Iraq, they funded and armed his regime. He was America's ally, just like several of the world's most despotic bastards are America's allies now.
And when he said Iraq had disarmed, it was true. When the Americans and Brits attacked and occupied Iraq, it wasn't necessary, and it wasn't for any of the reasons publicly proclaimed by America's President. Saddam didn't have any weapons of mass destruction. He wasn't working to get weapons of mass destruction. He was no danger to anyone but his own people, and even that danger was delivered by America. Thousands of Americans and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis have been killed, and the real reasons for this war won't be known for years, perhaps generations.
Once he was captured, Saddam could have faced justice in an international tribunal, but if he had, there were all sorts of true stories he could have told about American complicity in his crimes. So instead he was given an obviously rigged trial in an Iraqi court surrounded by American soldiers and overseen by American authorities. Then he was executed on the first day of the Islamic holy days Eid ul-Adha, for a little added insult to Muslims around the world.
It's hard to imagine that America is somehow safer because of the war and occupation of Iraq or the trial and execution of Saddam, since neither Saddam nor Iraq have ever posed any conceivable danger to America. But now as always, the political situation in Iraq is not rightfully any of America's business, except, arguably, insofar as the US owes Iraq a hell of a lot of reparation for supporting its disastrous dictatorship, and for the bombings and destruction that America launched when the dictator became inconvenient.
Saddam's future is in God or Allah's hands, but Iraq's future remains a large question mark. A madman has been toppled and executed, and a tyranny has been replaced with anarchy. So long as the American military remains there, Iraq will have puppet leaders like Saddam, hated by Iraqis but backed by the United States. If America ever withdraws its military, Iraq will become what most of its people want — a Muslim theocracy.
Either way, it's hard to see what America has gained, beyond a few thousand dead soldiers and a deeply damaged international reputation.
As the American occupation of Iraq continues (and it will continue, probably for at least as long as anyone reading this is alive) Saddam's crimes will become more and more a distant memory in Iraq, but all across the Middle East songs will be sung, legends told, and books written about the American invasion and occupation. And these won't be happy bedtime stories, they'll be the furious inspiration for future generations of angry insurrection.
How America armed Iraq
The Sunday Herald [Glasgow, Scotland] - June 14, 2004
Under the successive presidencies of Ronald Reagan and George Bush, the USA sold nuclear, chemical and biological weapons technology to Saddam Hussein.
In the early 1990s, UN inspectors told the US Senate committee on banking, housing and urban affairs —which oversees American export policy —that they had "identified many US-manufactured items exported pursuant of licenses issued by the US department of commerce that were used to further Iraq's chemical and nuclear weapons development and missile delivery system development programs".
In 1992, the committee began investigating "US chemical and biological warfare-related dual-use exports to Iraq". It found that 17 individual shipments totaling some 80 batches of biomaterial were sent to Iraq during the Reagan years.
These included two batches of anthrax and two batches of botulism being sent to the Iraqi ministry of higher education on May 2, 1986; one batch each of salmonella and E.Coli sent to the Iraqi state company for drug industries on August 31, 1987.
Other shipments from the US went to the Iraqi Atomic Energy Commission on July 11, 1988; the department of biology at the University of Basra in November 1989; the department of microbiology at Baghdad University in June 1985; the ministry of health in April 1985 and Officers' City military complex in Baghdad in March and April 1986.
As well as anthrax and botulism, the USA also sent West Nile fever, brucella melitensis, which damages major organs, and clostridium perfringens, which causes gas gangrene. The shipments even went on after Saddam ordered the gassing of the Kurdish town of Halabja, in which some 5000 people died, in March 1988.
The chairman of the Senate committee, Don Riegle, said: "The executive branch of our government approved 771 different export licenses for sale of dual-use technology to Iraq. I think it's a devastating record."
Other items which were sent by the US to Iraq included chemical warfare agent precursors, chemical warfare agent production facility plans and technical drawings, chemical warfare filling equipment, biological warfare-related materials, missile fabrication equipment and missile system guidance equipment.
Saddam Hussein was America's man in Baghdad
April 15, 2003 by James Ridgeway, Village Voice
It's unlikely we will ever know for sure what the U.S. government has been doing with Saddam Hussein over the past 40 or so years. According to documents unearthed from the Reagan era, we know that Reagan sent Donald Rumsfeld to Baghdad to egg on the dictator in his war with Iran. At the time, the U.S. provided Saddam with loans, military intelligence, and other assistance.
One story has it that Rumsfeld, then a drug company CEO, also was acting as a messenger boy for high officials in the Reagan administration who wanted to get rich building an oil pipeline from Iraq to Jordan. Secretary of State George Schultz, a former top official of Bechtel, was chief among them. He supposedly hoped to cash in on the deal if Bechtel got to build the pipeline.
Now comes a UPI story, based on interviews with various British and U.S. intelligence sources, claiming that from Jack Kennedy in the early 1960s on up to the first Persian Gulf War in 1991, Saddam was in the hands of the CIA. In his early twenties, Saddam was recruited to kill Iraqi prime minister Abd al-Karim Qasim, UPI reports. He had given the U.S. a fright by backing out of the pro-West Baghdad Pact, which brought together Turkey, Britain, Iran, and Pakistan in a defensive alliance against the Soviets. Having ditched the pact, Qasim started buying Soviet arms and installing Communists in top positions, all of which led then CIA chief Allen Dulles to say Iraq was "the most dangerous spot in the world."
According to the UPI report, Saddam led a farcical attempt to kill Qasim. Saddam and his six-man hit squad took up residence in a Baghdad apartment, but when the moment arrived, they got nervous and started shooting too soon, missing Qasim and ending up grazing Saddam. One of the hit men got a grenade stuck in the lining of his coat, and another put the wrong kind of bullets in his gun. Eventually Qasim was killed in a coup, rumored to have been encouraged by the CIA. Whether true or not, once the minister was killed, the CIA men gave the Baathist hierarchy lists of names of suspected Communists, whom they rounded up and murdered. A former senior U.S. State Department official told UPI: "We were frankly glad to be rid of them." Saddam became head of the Baathist intelligence apparatus.
Ever after, the CIA took care of Saddam, helping to spirit him out of Baghdad to Tikrit, and from there to Syria and Beirut, and on to Egypt. He seems never to have been popular among the spies because he was thuggish and too low-class.
During the 1980s the CIA drew close to Saddam's Baathist party-currently reviled as a bunch of vicious killer thugs, but then warmly regarded as our allies against the wacko ayatollahs in Iran. The CIA was providing Iraq with battlefield intelligence gained from a Saudi AWACS plane. It was during this period that Rumsfeld visited the dictator to see if there was anything the U.S. could do to help out.
The U.S. manipulations in the Middle East then became more and more confusing as the CIA provided intelligence reports to both Iraq and its Iranian enemy. One former official told UPI 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." On doing so, he said, "I thought I was losing my mind."
Saddam key in early CIA plot
April 10, 2003 by Richard Sale, United Press Int'l
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.
Saddam can never be allowed a fair trial
July 31, 2003 by Eric S. Margolis, Toronto Sun
If put on public trial, Saddam Hussein would have a field day revealing the embarrassing alliance between his brutal regime and Washington:
• CIA's role in bringing the Ba'ath Party to power in a 1958 coup, opening the way for Saddam to take control.
• US, Israeli, Iranian destabilization of Iraq during the 1970's by fueling Kurdish rebellion. Washington's egging on the aggressive Shah of Iran in the Shatt al-Arab waterway dispute, a primary cause of the Iran-Iraq War.
• US secretly urging Iraq to invade Iran in 1980 to overthrow that nation's revolutionary Islamic government.
• Covert supply of Saddam's war machine by the US and Britain during the eight-year Iran-Iraq conflict: biological warfare programs and germ feeder stocks, poison gas manufacturing plants and raw materials. Billions in aid, routed through the US Department of Agriculture, Italy's Banco del Lavoro, and the shady bank, BCCI. Heavy artillery, munitions, spare parts, trucks, field hospitals, and electronics.
Equally important, the US Defense Intelligence Agency and CIA operated offices in Baghdad that provided Iraq with satellite intelligence data on Iranian troop deployments that provided decisive in the war's titanic battles at Basra, Majnoon, and Faw.
• The murky role played by Washington just before Iraq's 1990 invasion of Kuwait. The US Ambassador told Saddam 'the US takes no position in Arab border disputes.' Was this a trap to lure Saddam to invade Kuwait, then crush his army, or simple diplomatic bungling? Saddam could supply the awkward answers.
In short, Saddam was one of America's closet Mideast allies during the 1980's, a major recipient of US military and financial aid. Saddam's killing of large numbers of Kurds and Shia rebels occurred while he was a key US ally. Washington remained mute at the time. When Bush I called on Kurds and Shia to revolt in 1991, the US watched impassively as Saddam slaughtered the poorly-armed rebels.
Better a bullet-riddled Saddam, or one executed by a military kangaroo court in Guantanamo, or hanged by the new, American- installed 'Vichy' Iraqi regime in Baghdad.
Saddam should be handed over by the US to the UN War Crimes Tribunal in the Hague that is currently trying Serbia's Slobodan Milosevic and other accused Balkan war criminals. After all, it was Washington that engineered Milosevic's delivery to the Hague, an act for which the US deserves high praise. What applies to Milosevic applies equally to Saddam Hussein.
In fact, it would be better for the Iraqi leader to stand trial at the newly constituted International War Crimes Tribunal in the Hague. But the Bush Administration, in one of its most shameful acts, has refused to join this tribunal or cooperate with it.
Rumsfeld backed Saddam even after chemical attacks
Dec. 24, 2003 The Independent [London, UK] by Andrew Buncombe,
Fresh controversy about Donald Rumsfeld's personal dealings with Saddam Hussein was provoked yesterday by new documents that reveal he went to Iraq to show America's support for the regime despite its use of chemical weapons.
The formerly secret documents reveal the Defence Secretary travelled to Baghdad 20 years ago to assure Iraq that America's condemnation of its use of chemical weapons was made "strictly" in principle.
The criticism in no way changed Washington's wish to support Iraq in its war against Iran and "to improve bi-lateral relations ... at a pace of Iraq's choosing".
Earlier this year, Mr Rumsfeld and other members of the Bush administration regularly cited Saddam's willingness to use chemical weapons against his own people as evidence of the threat presented to the rest of the world.
Senior officials presented the attacks against the Kurds — particularly the notorious attack in Halabja in 1988 — as a justification for the invasion and the ousting of Saddam.
But the newly declassified documents reveal that 20 years ago America's position was different and that the administration of President Ronald Reagan was concerned about maintaining good relations with Iraq despite evidence of Saddam's "almost daily" use of chemical weapons against Iranian troops and Kurdish rebels.
In March 1984, under international pressure, America condemned Iraq's use of such chemical weapons. But realising that Baghdad had been upset, Secretary of State George Schultz asked Mr Rumsfeld to travel to Iraq as a special envoy to meet Saddam's Foreign Minister, Tariq Aziz, and smooth matters over.
In a briefing memo to Mr Rumsfeld, Mr Shultz wrote that he had met Iraqi officials in Washington to stress that America's interests remained "in (1) preventing an Iranian victory and (2) continuing to improve bilateral relations with Iraq".
The memo adds: "This message bears reinforcing during your discussions."
Exactly what Mr Rumsfeld, who at the time did not hold government office, told Mr Aziz on 26 March 1984, remains unclear and minutes from the meeting remain classified. No one from Mr Rumsfeld's office was available to comment yesterday.
It was not Mr Rumsfeld's first visit to Iraq. Four months earlier, in December 1983, he had visited Saddam and was photographed shaking hands with the dictator. When news of this visit was revealed last year, Mr Rumsfeld claimed he had "cautioned" Saddam to stop using chemical weapons.
When documents about the meeting disclosed he had said no such thing, a spokesman for Mr Rumsfeld said he had raised the issue with Mr Aziz.
America's relationship with Iraq at a time when Saddam was using chemical weapons is well-documented but rarely reported.
During the war with Iran, America provided combat assistance to Iraq that included intelligence on Iranian deployments and bomb-damage assessments. In 1987-88 American warships destroyed Iranian oil platforms in the Gulf and broke the blockade of Iraqi shipping lanes.
Tom Blanton, the director of the National Security Archive, a non-profit group that obtained the documents, told The New York Times: "Saddam had chemical weapons in the 1980s and it didn't make any difference to US policy. The embrace of Saddam and what it emboldened him to do should caution us as Americans that we have to look closely at all our murky alliances."
Last night, Danny Muller, a spokesman for the anti-war group Voices in the Wilderness, said the documents revealed America's "blatant hypocrisy". He added: "This is not an isolated event. Continuing administrations have said 'we will do business'. I am surprised that Donald Rumsfeld does not resign right now."
Did we get back Saddam's key to the city of Detroit?
March 26, 2003 WNDU-TV [South Bend, IN]
Years before Saddam Hussein became an enemy to the United States, he was reportedly seen as a friend and made an honorary Detroit citizen.
In 1980 when Saddam Hussein was on good terms with America, he was quite the giver. Hussein donated money to help several churches in the motor city, Detroit.
There are pictures of a meeting between a Detroit priest and Saddam Hussein when he accepted the donation.
Father Jacob Yasso of the Sacred Heart Chaldean Church says, "He said, 'We hear you have a debt on your church'. I said, 'Yes Mr. President'. He said, 'How much?'. I said '$170,000'. He said, 'I'll pay it off for you'."
Father Yasso returned the favor at that same meeting 23 years ago. He gave Hussein a key to the city of Detroit making him an honorary citizen.
http://www.unknownnews.net/saddam.html