The sources for the report are interviews with former Saddam apparatchiks as well as over half a million documents captured and translated. The synopsis is a very interesting read and I have a feeling that the report is going to prove to have enduring value to those who continue to support the necessity of removing Saddam.
The Saddam Fedayeen also took part in the regime's domestic terrorism operations and planned for attacks throughout Europe and the Middle East. In a document dated May 1999, Saddam's older son, Uday, ordered preparations for "special operations, assassinations, and bombings, for the centers and traitor symbols in London, Iran and the self-ruled areas [Kurdistan]." Preparations for "Blessed July," a regime-directed wave of "martyrdom" operations against targets in the West, were well under way at the time of the coalition invasion.
That almost sounds like terrorism, doesn't it?
[Footnote #1] For many months after the fall of Baghdad, a number of senior Iraqi officials in coalition custody continued to believe it possible that Iraq still possessed a WMD capability hidden away somewhere (although they adamantly insisted that they had no direct knowledge of WMD programs). Coalition interviewers discovered that this belief was based on the fact that Iraq had possessed and used WMD in the past and might need them again; on the plausibility of secret, compartmentalized WMD programs existing given how the Iraqi regime worked; and on the fact that so many Western governments believed such programs existed.
What a clever man Saddam was.
1 comment:
I recall that in the days following the fall of Baghdad and the disappearance of Saddam he made several announcements from his hidey hole. Among the things he promised was ten thousand suicide bombers. Maybe he was not just blowing off.
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