Former Indonesian President Describes Lynching of Jews in Iraq

From Former Indonesian President Describes Lynching of Jews in Iraq via DailyAlert:

Abdurrahman Wahid, 67, the former Indonesian president and a leading Muslim scholar, revealed the root of his understanding of the risks and perils of Jewish existence. Wahid was a student at Baghdad University in 1966, earning his keep as a secretary at a textile importer, when he befriended the firm's elderly accountant, an Iraqi Jew he remembers only by his family name, Ramin. In 1968, the Iraqi government effectively had come under the control of Saddam Hussein, who at that time was deputy to the president, Ahmad Hassan al-Bakr. At Saddam's behest, Iraqi courts had convicted 14 Iraqis - nine of them Jews - on trumped-up charges of spying for Israel, and they were hanged in Baghdad's Tahrir Square, just steps away from where the textile firm had offices.

Wahid has gained prominence for his insistence on introducing Muslim nations to certain truths about the Jews. He has called Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad a "liar" for denying the Holocaust. Wahid says moderate Islam stands a greater chance of triumphing over Islamic radicalism once Western leaders stop trying to accommodate Islamic extremists. Saudi Arabia, in particular, remains the primary funding source for the global spread of fundamentalist Islam.

Michigan Man Accused of Helping Saddam Set Up Pre-War Visit to Iraq by U.S. Lawmakers

Mark Levin reported the breaking news that an Iraqi-American, Muthanna Al-Hanooti, had been indicted as a spy. In addition, Al-Hanooti is accused of secretly funding the October 2002 pre-invasion trip to Iraq of three antiwar House Democrats, Congressmen Jim McDermott (D-WA), Mike Thompson (D-CA), and David E. Bonior (D-MI, now retired. Muthanna Al-Hanooti was given an offer that federal prosecutors say he couldn't refuse: Set up a trip for U.S. lawmakers to pre-war Iraq and earn 2 million barrels of Iraqi oil in return.

An indictment unsealed Wednesday in Detroit accuses Al-Hanooti, a member of a Michigan nonprofit group, of making those arrangements in 2002 at the behest of Saddam Hussein's regime. The deal allegedly was financed by Iraqi intelligence officials through an intermediary.

At the time, the Bush administration was trying to persuade Congress to authorize military action against Iraq. The three anti-war Democratic lawmakers apparently targeted by Al-Hanooti used their October 2002 trip to call for a diplomatic solution in Iraq.

Click here to read why any or all of the Congressmen could have easily learned, prior to their trip to Baghdad, the man funding them had a direct tie to Saddam Hussein’s murderous regime.

Saddam's Terror Links

Saddam Hussein's filthy tentacles of death were world-wide. He funded Muslim terror and worked with the detestable Yasser Arafat, in order to kill Jews and other non-Muslims all over the globe. From Saddam's Terror Links:

A new Pentagon report suggests that Iraq's links to world-wide terror networks, including al-Qaeda, were far more extensive than previously understood. Throughout the 1990s, the Iraqi Intelligence Service (IIS) cooperated with Hamas; the Palestine Liberation Front, which maintained a Baghdad office; Force 17, Yasser Arafat's private army; and others. The IIS gave commando training for members of Egyptian Islamic Jihad, the organization that assassinated Anwar Sadat and whose "emir" was Ayman al-Zawahiri, who became Osama bin Laden's second-in-command when the group merged with al-Qaeda in 1998. Captured documents "reveal that the regime was willing to co-opt or support organizations it knew to be part of al-Qaeda - as long as that organization's near-term goals supported Saddam's long-term version," the report said.

Saddam Hussein's Son Uday Ordered Hit Squad to Carry Out Murders and Bombings in Britain

Like murderous father, like murderous son. From Saddam Hussein's Son Uday Ordered Hit Squad to Carry Out Murders and Bombings in Britain:

Saddam Hussein's son Uday hatched a plot to assassinate Iraqi opposition leader Ahmed Chalabi in London in April 2000, according to a new Pentagon study based on documents seized during the Iraq war. The documents show that officials at the Iraqi embassy in London had a stock of weapons that Saddam had ordered them to destroy in July 2002, including seven Kalashnikov guns, 19 other guns with ammunition, and silencers.

Saddam Collected Information from PA on Potential Targets in Israel

The truth always comes out. Saddam Hussein was the lead behind Muslim terror against innocent Jews in Israel. From Saddam Collected Information from PA on Potential Targets in Israel:

Saddam Hussein's intelligence service collected information on dozens of sites in Israel, including airports, other transportation centers, as well as scientific and religious centers that were thought to be potential targets for attacks. Among the sources providing intelligence to Saddam's regime was Force 17, the security force of Yasser Arafat, which planned and carried out attacks against Israeli targets from its Ramallah headquarters. This information emerged following the release of documents captured during the American invasion in 2003. The captured documents also detail a 2001 plan to release jailed Iraqis if they agreed to volunteer to carry out attacks on Israeli targets.

Report Details Saddam's Terrorist Ties

The truth continues to flow regarding Saddam Hussein's ties to funding and using Muslim terror to target Americans. From Report Details Saddam's Terrorist Ties via Daily Alert:

A Pentagon review of about 600,000 documents captured in the Iraq war attests to Saddam Hussein's willingness to use terrorism to target Americans and work closely with jihadist organizations throughout the Middle East. The report, released this week by the Institute for Defense Analyses, says it found no "smoking gun" linking Iraq operationally to al-Qaeda. But it does say Saddam collaborated with known al-Qaeda affiliates and a wider constellation of Islamist terror groups.

See also Saddam's Dangerous Friends

Read the Report: Saddam and Terrorism: Emerging Insights

Saddam Hussein Intended to Resume WMD Programs

From Saddam Hussein Intended to Resume WMD Programs via Daily Alert:

The Lebanese-born George Piro, one of the few FBI agents who speaks Arabic and who debriefed Saddam Hussein following his capture in December 2003, was interviewed Sunday by Scott Pelley on CBS's "60 Minutes."

The FBI interrogator said that, while Saddam said he no longer had active weapons of mass destruction (WMD) programs in 2003, the dictator admitted that he intended to resume those programs as soon as he possibly could.

"The folks that he needed to reconstitute his program are still there....He wanted to pursue all of WMD. So he wanted to reconstitute his entire WMD program," Piro said.

Saddam told Piro that he maintained a pretense of having those weapons mainly to keep Iran at bay. But the key point is Saddam's admission that an Iraqi WMD program remained a threat so long as Saddam remained in power.

In another telling moment in the "60 Minutes" interview, Mr. Piro relates that when he asked Saddam about his use of chemical weapons against Kurdish civilians, the dictator acknowledged that he had given the orders personally and explained himself in a word: "Necessary."

The same still goes for getting rid of Saddam.

Saddam's female assassin squads

On this day in WND history, seven years ago:

In an amazing and previously unreported story filed from Copenhagen, Denmark, WND international correspondent Anthony LoBaido revealed that Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein had sent hordes of female assassins to Denmark as well as other European destinations to wipe out Kurdish refugees and defectors fleeing Iraq, and even had installed spies on the Danish Refugee Council, according to the Danish Red Cross.

The assassins infiltrated Iraqi opposition circles to kill and maim leading Kurdish and Iraqi opposition leaders by means ranging from poisonings to car crashes. Graduates of a two-month training course held outside Baghdad, these "Mata Hari" hit squads were code-named Operation Falcon. According to British intelligence, they were staffed by belly dancers, actresses and artists who claim to be seeking asylum.

"The regime is using women because they would raise less suspicion," said Dr. Ayad Allawi, secretary general of the London-based Iraqi National Accord and a former ally of Saddam. "In our culture, we don't expect women to spy or kill. This is the most substantial operation we have seen for years."

Authors examine Saddam Hussein's terror ties...

...and by doing so, prove that Democrats thrive only in mendacity, dirty soil, and under cover of godlessness. h/t to Saddam Hussein's Philanthropy to Terror:

1. "The Paper Trail: Newly released documents provide more evidence of Saddam's terror ties," By Laurie Mylroie, OpinionJournal.com (Wall Street Journal online) Sunday, April 2, 2006 GO TO ARTICLE

2. "Iraqi Perspectives Project: A View of Operation Iraqi Freedom from Saddam's Senior Leadership," By Kevin M. Woods, et al, Joint Center for Operational Analysis, U.S. Defense Department, Spring 2006. GO TO ARTICLE [PDF]

3. "Did Russian Ambassador Give Saddam the U.S. War Plan? / Osama bin Laden Contact With Iraq" ABCNews.com, March 23, 2006 GO TO ARTICLE

4. "Team W's Unilateral Disarmament," New York Post, March 6, 2006 GO TO ARTICLE

5. "Open the Iraq Files: American spooks don't want to release Saddam's secrets," Wall Street Journal, March 3, 2006 GO TO ARTICLE

6. "Saddam's Documents: What they tell us could save American lives today," Wall Street Journal, January 13, 2006 GO TO ARTICLE

7. "Saddam and al Qaeda: There's abundant evidence of connections," By Claudia Rosett, Wall Street Journal Europe, July 13, 2005 GO TO ARTICLE

8. "Saddam's Terrorist Ties," By Laurie Mylroie, The New York Sun, October 19, 2004 GO TO ARTICLE
* * *

CONTACT INFORMATION

Please direct media inquiries to: media@husseinandterror.com.

Readers may send comments to: feedback@husseinandterror.com.

Chemical Ali "Threw My Sons from a Helicopter

Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, where are you? From Chemical Ali "Threw My Sons from a Helicopter:

Speaking from behind a curtain at the trial of 15 of Saddam Hussein's aides accused of crimes against humanity during the brutal repression of the 1991 Shia rebellion in Iraq, a mother said: "The army detained my two sons, my brother and my niece on March 3, 1991. Nine days later, my brother and niece were released and they told me that Ali Hasan al-Majid [Saddam's cousin, Chemical Ali] had executed my two sons by throwing them out of a helicopter into the Gulf."

Many Shias who took part in the uprising say they had expected U.S. forces to back them in the rebellion, but former president Bush instead ordered a halt at the Iraqi border, leaving the rebels at the mercy of Saddam's elite Revolutionary Guards.

Today in Jewish History - Sivan 5

Sponsored by Aish.com:

In 1981, Israel bombed and destroyed the Iraqi nuclear reactor in Baghdad. Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein had pronounced himself as the reincarnation of Babylonian tyrant Nebuchadnezzar, and named the nuclear reactor "Tammuz" -- the name of the calamitous Jewish month when Nebuchadnezzar's troops laid siege on Jerusalem 2,500 years earlier. Ilan Ramon (later to become Israel's first astronaut, who died in the explosion of the Space Shuttle Columbia) and seven other pilots executed the daring raid -- flying over enemy Arab territory for hours, and avoiding detection with their tight formation that emitted a radar signal resembling a commercial airliner. However, even as Israel celebrated the successful raid, condemnation was nearly universal. One prominent U.S. senator called it "one of the most provocative, ill-timed and internationally illegal actions taken in that nation's history." Two decades later, as the world feared Saddam's weapons of mass destruction, the Israeli action was vindicated.

Report: "I Found Saddam's WMD Bunkers"

From Report: "I Found Saddam's WMD Bunkers":

Dave Gaubatz says Saddam's WMD did exist. He found the sites where he is certain they were stored.

Having served for 12 years as an agent in the U.S. Air Force's Office of Special Investigations, Gaubatz, a trained Arabic speaker, was posted in 2003 in Nasariyah in Iraq.

His mission was to locate suspect WMD sites, discover threats against U.S. forces in the area and find Saddam loyalists, and then send such intelligence to the Iraq Survey Group and other agencies.

Between March and July 2003, he was taken to four sites in southern Iraq - two within Nasariyah - which, he was told by numerous Iraqi sources, contained biological and chemical weapons, material for a nuclear program, and UN-proscribed missiles.

He was in no doubt that this was true because of the massive size of these sites and the extreme lengths to which the Iraqis had gone to conceal them.

Three of them were massive bunkers buried 20 to 30 feet beneath the Euphrates, with walls made of reinforced concrete five feet thick.

There were "signs of chemical activity - gas masks, decontamination kits, atropine needles. The Iraqis and my team had no doubt at all that WMDs were hidden there," said Gaubatz.

In addition, the medical records of Gaubatz and his team showed that at these sites they had been exposed to high levels of radiation.

Gaubatz subsequently learned from Iraqi, CIA and British intelligence that the WMD buried in the four sites were excavated by Iraqis and Syrians, with help from the Russians, and moved to Syria. The location in Syria of this material, he says, is also known to these intelligence agencies.

Folks, this confirms my previous article, Evidence of WMDs in Iraq and Syria.

Evidence of WMDs in Iraq and Syria

Last evening or I should say overnight, Michael Shrimpton, a barrister specialising in national security and intelligence law, was interviewed by Art Bell for more than two hours on Art's radio show, and Mr. Shrimpton gave compelling evidence that not only were WMDs in Iraq prior to 2003, they were covertly shipped out of the country via railroad and other methods into Syria. Not only that, Shrimpton also cited evidence how France and Germany were complicit in the development of the WMDs for Iraq by being providers of weapon-grade yellow-cake and other nuclear materials. If you will remember, Saddam used French-made artillery and helicopters to dump gas on the Iranians and his own people.

The audio of the entire interview will be available later today and is accessible to StreamLink subscribers for just pennies.

Art Bell, who typically suspends his disbelief when it comes to aliens and ghosts, had a difficult time buying into Michael Shrimpton's solid evidence. I did not.

Many of us bloggers posted several articles back in 2003 and 2004 about the satellite imagery proof positive evidence of WMDs being transported into Syria. With the United States pronouncement several months before our actual invasion into Iraq, this timeframe proved to be an excellent window for Germany, France and Syria to enable Iraq to offload her WMDs.

Today I decided to research again the articles that were published some years ago by major media outlets, like the Washington Post, which used to link to its own U.N.: Weapons Equipment Missing in Iraq article, but it no longer exists on their site.

However, the Washington Post made sure that articles that embarass the Bush and the Blair administrations still exist. See this. Good editing of your archives, Washington Compost. You've certainly earned your nickname.

CNN posted this article alongside NewsMax posting this one. But the Washington Post published this one.

The Guardian did at one time but no longer links to Polish Troops Find Sarin Warheads in Iraq, but you can find the same article on USAToday here and on FoxNews here. Fortunately, this article Nerve gas used for first time against coalition does still exist at The Guardian, but you better hurry. Referrals from Smooth Stone might make the Arabists there scurry and cover their dirty tracks.

Art Bell claimed during the interview that he did not see one article that described the movement of WMDs out of Iraq into Syria.

I post the following links to prove otherwise:

From Associated Press, U.N.: Weapons equipment missing in Iraq, available on MSNBC

From Geo-Strategy Intelligence Brief, Duelfer: 'A lot of material left Iraq and went to Syria', available on WorldNetDaily

From FrontPageMag, Where the WMDs Went, still available there,

From NewsMax, Iraqi Documents Show Saddam Possessed WMD, Had Extensive Terror Ties, originally published on CNSNews.com,

From NewsMax, Powell: Bush Right to Assume Iraq Had WMDs

From NewsMax, Warner: New Report Backs Iraq WMD Claims

Now, on July 21, 2004, UPI published "Nuclear arms reportedly found in Iraq" and it was cited on every one of these sites, but the article no longer exists on UPI's pages.

The NY Sun still has its link to Saddam's WMD Moved to Syria, An Israeli Says

FrontPageMagazine still links to the Butcher of Basra, an interview with Ali Ibrahim Al-Tikriti, a southern regional commander for Saddam's Fedayheen in the mid-to-late 1980's.

Surprisingly, the Telegraph still links to Saddam's WMD hidden in Syria, says Iraq survey chief

NewsMax links to Lab Tests Could Link Saddam's Missing WMDs to Jordan Plot

Larry Elder's interview with John Loftus, Iraqi WMDs, Now in Syria, is still alive.

WorldNetDaily still has Saddam's WMDs are in Syria

NewsMax links to Gen. Tommy Franks: Iraq Had WMD in 2003

The ScotsMan links to Saddam bankrolled Palestinian terrorists, but nobody cares when a Jew gets blown to bits, because the Jew-hating savages over at Daily KOS believe we deserve it.

MensNewsDaily still links to Syria and the WMD Shell Game

WorldNetDaily, forever loyal to its readership, links to Saddam's WMD have been found and The Heritage Foundation still has links to Syria-ous Problem.

There is no doubt that the mainstream media outlets, those raggy tabloids which deleted their links to their own published pages which document WMDs in Iraq and Syria, have fallen for
the trumped-up concoction of superstitions and deceit which is Islam, merely because the world was cursed by having its main energy source located under the feet of muslim savages.

By the way, did you know that France buys oil from Iran at $12 a barrel? Talk about dirty players.

Let's not forget the Democrat Quotes on Saddam Hussein's WMD Before the War.

In Saddam’s Gifts, which is an ABC News page that no longer exists, but which is cited on Right Voices, we learn that

An Iraqi newspaper has published an extraordinary list that contains the names
of prominent people around the world who supported Saddam Hussein’s regime and
were given oil contracts as a result.

More from Right Voices in How Much Does Appeasement Cost in Oil?:

These are the people the US was to wait for a permission slip from? They said that Bush was in it for the oil…for the special interests in Halliburton and their contracts — that Big Oil was pushing the war on Iraq.

See how easily these appeasers are able to look the other way in the face of human atrocities of the Saddam kind? When they are given gifts of money and big oil contracts - - it’s amazing how the cost of human life, at the hands of that brutal dictator and his men, can seem so paltry.

Among those names are:

Russia
The Companies of the Russian Communist Party
The Companies of the Liberal Democratic Party
The Russian Committee for Solidarity with Iraq
Head of the Russian Presidential Cabinet
The Russian Orthodox Church

France
Charles Pasqua, former minister of interior
Trafigura (Patrick Maugein), businessman
Ibex
Bernard Merimee, former French ambassador to the United Nations
Michel Grimard, founder of the French-Iraqi Export Club
France was the second-largest beneficiary, with tens of millions of barrels awarded to Patrick Maugein, a close political associate and financial backer of French President Jacques Chirac.

Syria
Firas Mostafa Tlass, son of Syria’s defense minister

Turkey
Zeynel Abidin Erdem
Lotfy Doghan

Indonesia
President Megawati Sukarnoputri

Spain
Ali Ballout, Lebanese journalist

Yugoslavia
The Socialist Party
Kostunica’s Party

Canada
Arthur Millholland, president and CEO of Oilexco

Italy
Father Benjamin, a French Catholic priest who arranged a meeting between the pope and then-Iraqi Foreign Minister Tarik Aziz
Roberto Frimigoni

United States
Samir Vincent

United Kingdom
George Galloway, member of Parliament
Mujaheddin Khalq

South Africa
Tokyo Saxwale

Jordan
Shaker bin Zaid
The Jordanian Ministry of Energy
Fawaz Zureikat
Toujan Al Faisal, former member of Parliament

Lebanon
The son of President Lahoud

Egypt
Khaled Abdel Nasser
Emad Al Galda, businessman and Parliament member

Palestinian Territories
The Palestinian Liberation Organization
Abu Al Abbas

Qatar
Hamad bin Ali Al Thany

Libya
Prime Minister Shukri Ghanem

Chad
Foreign Minister of Chad

Brazil
The October 8th Movement

Myanmar (Burma)
The Minister of the Forests of Myanmar

Ukraine
The Social Democratic Party
The Communist Party
The Socialist Party
The FTD Oil Co.

How much oil does appeasement cost? How many women and children? How much fear? Interests within Russia and France top this list - - two of the top three countries strongly opposed to the loss of their lucrative oil contracts war in Iraq.

Here are photos of satellite images of WMD facilities in Syria. Also, a senior Syrian journalist reports Iraq WMD located in three Syrian sites, here.

JihadWatch still cites a now non-existant article from AFP's Syria tested chemical arms on civilians in Darfur region

NewsMax still has Ex-Official: Russia Moved Saddam's WMD which is posted in full here on TimeBomb2000.com, originally posted on http://www.intelligencesummit.org/

I think you get my point. For Art Bell, an intelligent and inquiring fellow, to claim alongside American fascists who believe the canard that 9-11 was an inside job, that there was no evidence of any articles to suggest that WMDs were hauled out of Iraq into Syria, is just not believable. The evidence exists. It just depends on what side of the Arab love fest you're on.

Liberals and their pro-Islam agenda are ready to toss the Jews - and Americans - into the cage in order to feed the Islamic beast. How long until the American people realize that? Maybe they will realize it the next time we get hit. And we will get hit again.

Saddam's former Deputy hanged in Iraq

From Breitbart.com:

Saddam Hussein's former deputy was hanged before dawn Tuesday for the killings of 148 Shiites, an official with the prime minister's office said.

Taha Yassin Ramadan, who was Saddam's vice president when the regime was ousted four years ago, was the fourth man to be executed in the killings of 148 Shiites following a 1982 assassination attempt against the former leader in the city of Dujail.

The executions have outraged Iraqi Sunnis and caused concern among international human rights groups, which have appealed for Ramadan's life.

Where were these phony international human rights groups when Saddam Hussein had approximately 40 of his own relatives murdered, when he unleashed a bloodbath in the Iran-Iraq war which left 150,000 to 340,000 Iraqis and 450,000 to 730,000 Iranians dead, when his documented chemical attacks by his regime caused some 30,000 Iraqi and Iranian deaths, when his chemical attack on the Kurdish village of Halabja killed approximately 5,000 people, when 1,000 Kuwaitis were killed in Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, when the bloody suppression of Kurdish and Shi'a uprisings in northern and southern Iraq killed at least 30,000 to 60,000, and where his victims of torture in Iraq were subjected to a wide range of forms of torture, including the gouging out of eyes, severe beatings and electric shocks?

Oh I know, they were berating Israel for defending herself against the constant attacks by bloodthirsty Muslims just like Saddam Hussein.

Almost 10,000 Days, Same Players, Same Game & We Have Learned Nothing

Northeast Intelligence Network reminds us that:

Today is the 26th anniversary of the release of 52 Americans who were held hostage by Islamic terrorists in Iran for an unbelievable 444 days. Released from their captivity on January 21, 1981, it has been two months shy of 10,000 days – 9940 days to be exact, since about 300 Islamic terrorists calling themselves students stormed the U.S. Embassy Compound on Taleghani Avenue in Tehran, called at that time "the den of spies." Some believe that the birthing of the Islamic Republic of Iran and the Embassy takeover marked the beginning of the clash between Islam and the West that we are still fighting today. It was – and continues to be – Islam versus the West in general, or perhaps more specifically, Islam versus the U.S. and Israel. It is the same war that ultimately forever changed the landscape of America on 9/11, with numerous clashes before and since that day of death and destruction.

Folks, it's easy to forget how long Islam has been laying seige on the West, and it's even easier to think that Israel is the root problem, because scapegoating Jews is a centuries-old thought process. Yet, if that were the case, if Israel is responsible for Muslim wrath, tell me what Israel did to encourage Syria to swallow Lebanon, to encourage Saddam Hussein to unleash a bloodbath against Iran, to encourage Saddam Hussein to invade Kuwait, to encourage Kuwait to expel hundreds of thousands of "palestinians", to encourage the Taliban to destroy the Bamiyan Buddha statues in Afghanistan, to encourage the slaughter of Christians in the Sudan, to encourage the bombings in Bali that killed 202 people, to encourage church bombings in Pakistan, or to blow up 150 Indians on the railroad system in Bombay, or to blow up commuters on London's rail stations. Still think Israel is the cause of all problems? Think again. Click here to read the article in full.

For the Bush-Lied-People-Died crowd

Via FrontPage: "Bush-Lied-People-Died" is the rhetorical pot of gold at the end of the left’s argumentative rainbow. But the threshold of proof is so astronomically high--a Bush defender need only show the decision was reasonable, not necessarily correct--that none of Bush’s critics has ever come close to making the case. Put yourself in Bush’s position and consider what you know in late 2002:

a) 3000 Americans are dead in New York City, Washington, D.C. and Pennsylvania. Also dead is the useful myth that the United States will respond to a direct attack on its soil with a terrible swift sword; the formula for waging war against the U.S. is now apparent to our enemies--just work through non-state actors and turn over a few usual-suspect corpses if the U.S. connects the dots afterwards and demands justice.

b) Saddam is in violation of United Nations Resolution #687 which ended the first Gulf War--to which the U.S. is a principal signatory and thus principal aggrieved party.

c) Saddam’s military is firing at American aircraft patrolling the No Fly Zone in Iraq and Saddam himself doling out cash rewards to the families of Palestinian terrorists who kill Israelis--and occasionally American citizens.

d) There is a sealed indictment of Osama from the Clinton Administration which reads in part, “Al Qaeda reached an understanding with the government of Iraq that al Qaeda would not work against that government and that on particular projects, specifically including weapons development, al Qaeda would work cooperatively with the government of Iraq.”

e) A personal warning was issued from Russian President Vladimir Putin that Saddam is planning terrorist strikes against the United States and an unconfirmed British intelligence report that Saddam recently sought to buy uranium from Niger.

f) The head of the CIA is telling you emphatically Saddam possesses WMDs, echoing the consensus of every other intelligence agency on the planet.

g) Saddam has been jerking around weapons inspectors, thwarting their inquiries and intermittently kicking them out for a decade--which makes little sense unless he’s hiding WMDs.

h) There is incontrovertible proof of Saddam’s willingness to use WMDs on foreign enemies and even on his own people.

i) There are reports of thousands of Iraqi children dying each month as a result of UN sanctions as well as evidence that the sanctions themselves are collapsing amid governmental and corporate corruption.

j) Finally, there is a copy of the Presidential Daily Briefing from August 6, 2001 sitting on your desk titled “Bin Laden determined to strike in U.S.” The intelligence it contains is sketchy--far sketchier than the intelligence you now possess about Saddam’s intentions--but the title haunts you. If only you’d acted preemptively in August 2001, if only you’d taken out bin Laden. . .

In short, given the information at his disposal, George Bush’s decision to oust Saddam looks altogether reasonable--though, again, not necessarily right. To argue otherwise demonstrates both ignorance and bad faith.

Saddam Half Brother, Ex-Official Hanged

Saddam Hussein's half brother and the former head of Iraq's Revolutionary Court were both hanged before dawn Monday, Prosecutor Munqith al-Faroon said, two weeks and two days after the former Iraqi dictator was executed in a chaotic scene that has drawn worldwide criticism.

Barzan Ibrahim al-Tikriti, Saddam's half brother and former intelligence chief, and Awad Hamed al-Bandar head of Iraq's Revolutionary Court, had been found guilty along with Saddam in the killing of 148 Shiite Muslims after a 1982 assassination attempt on the former leader in the town of Dujail north of Baghdad.

Who was Barzan Ibrahim al-Tikriti? Barzan Ibrahim al-Tikriti is Saddam Hussein's half-brother, and his wife is the sister of Saddam's first wife, Sajeda Kheit Allah.

Barzan Ibrahim al-Tikriti was Saddam's enforcer, a man who ate grapes as he watched torture and was reputed to have a meat grinder for human flesh. His death was as grisly as some of those he inflicted on others. His head was ripped from his body by the hangman's noose as he plunged through the trapdoor of the gallows, according to a government spokesman who called it a rare mishap.

A witness at his trial said Barzan had personally supervised his torture with electric shocks in Baghdad in the 1980s, and had eaten grapes while the man screamed in agony. Another witness described how Barzan beat her and broke her ribs after she was hung naked from the ceiling by her feet.

Prosecution witness Ahmed Hassan described being taken to Barzan's interrogation facility in Baghdad and seeing a meat grinder for human flesh. Widely circulated film of him viciously kicking a man who lies cowering on the floor sealed his image as Saddam's enforcer.

Barzan ran Iraq's intelligence service from 1979 to 1983 but fell out of favour over his hatred for Lieutenant-General Hussein Kamel Hassan, who married Saddam's daughter Raghd.

Barzan, who was born in February 1951 in Tikrit, resurfaced as Iraq's ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva from 1988 to 1997. One of his roles there was as Iraq's envoy to the Conference on Disarmament, which was holding preliminary talks on nuclear bomb making fissile material.

Barzan was a former head of the Mukhabarat intelligence service and one of the most feared men in Iraq. Mukhabarat, the intelligence organisation, was believed to have tortured and murdered thousands of opponents of Saddam Hussein's regime.

After serving nearly a decade in the Swiss city, Barzan was called back to Baghdad in late 1998 after his wife died of cancer. But he returned regularly to Geneva to visit his six children who stayed to complete their studies.

Sources: GlobalSecurity.org, Reuters

Ancient lies no basis for a policy

Via JWR.

Two seemingly unrelated events in the waning days and hours of 2006 pretty much summed up everything you need to know about the Arab-Israeli conflict.Their meaning can be characterized simply: The Arab world's obsession with eradicating the State of Israel and the West's willingness to deceive itself about the character of Arab leaders and their intentions both are based on lies.

The more famous of the two events was the hanging of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. In his final moments before he got his just desserts, the doomed Iraqi once again played the card that he and other Arab despots have always used with impunity: Israel.

Thus, among his finalcomments on the gallows came this declaration: "Palestine is Arab!"

Why invoke this cause with his last breath? Because even at that moment he still
thought it worth a try to deflect discussion of his comeuppance to that of the
conflict with Israel.

Another event that was received with far less fanfare took place only days before Hussein's death. It was the release of a 33-year-old classified document by the United States State Department. It confirmed what had long been rumored: that the late Palestinian Liberation Organization leader Yasser Arafat personally ordered the murders of two kidnapped American diplomats in March 1973.

Members of a PLO-front group called "Black September gunned down the two, Cleo Noel, U.S. ambassador to Sudan, and the embassy's Charge d'Affaires George Moore, along
with Guy Eid, a Belgian envoy, in cold blood." The supposed separate identity of
the group —which was also responsible for the 1972 massacre of 11 Israeli
Olympic athletes in Munich — from that of Arafat's Fatah was a cover
story intended to separate the Palestinian mainstream from its more egregious
crimes.

Arafat denied any role in these murders to the day of his own death in 2004. Though he was the godfather of modern terror, he sought to burnish his mythical image as a statesman to the West. But this was nothing compared to the self-deception of Western governments who knew better, particularly the employers of Noel and Moore, the United States State Department.

Saddam Hussein pictures fill Palestinian homes

In a show of solidarity with the mass murderer Saddam Hussein, hundreds of Palestinian homes have put his picture on their walls. Photography studios in Nablus are reporting dozens of young men coming in asking for copies of images of Hussein to frame for their homes.

Iraq executed Saddam too soon

It was a mistake because Saddam Hussein was tried and convicted for perpetrating a mass murder that took place in 1982 that killed 148 Shiite Muslims in the northern town of Dujail. Just one incident involving one case of mass murder. The only way to actually right the wrong that Saddam perpetrated on the Iraqi people would have been to try him for every event and enter every event into the court record and convict him of every murder. This mass murderer should have been held accountable for more than one single event.