While he was in Cairo, there's some belief that he may have had contact with Americans, with the CIA. What can you tell us about that? There is very good reason to believe that Saddam Hussein was in contact with the American embassy in Cairo when he was in exile. This is not strange, because alliances of convenience were taking place every day. And the United States was afraid that Iraq, under Kassem, might be going communist. So was the Ba'ath Party. So they had a common enemy, a common target--the possibility of a communist take-over of Iraq. So there is a record of Saddam visiting the American embassy frequently, and there is a record of the Egyptian security people telling him not to do that. However, one must remember that at that time, Saddam was a minor official of the Ba'ath Party. He was not terribly important. And he was really following in the footsteps of other people who are much more important. And what would be the idea behind all this? The visits to the American embassy by Saddam Hussein and other members of the Ba'ath Party had one purpose, and one purpose only. To co-operate with the Americans towards the overthrow of General Kassem in Iraq. Kassem was slightly pro-communist and the Americans wanted to get rid of that danger. Allen Dulles described Iraq as the most dangerous part of the earth in front of a congressional committee. The Ba'ath thought Kassem was their enemy, so there was a mutuality there. And whether a conspiracy transpired or not, the evidence is actually in favor of it having taken place. But the conspiracy was for the duration of getting rid of Kassem. It was not an alliance of permanent nature. There was a coup in Iraq in 1963. What do we know about the U.S. involvement in that coup? The U.S. involvement in the coup against Kassem in Iraq in 1963 was substantial. There is evidence that CIA agents were in touch with army officers who were involved in the coup. There is evidence that an electronic command center was set up in Kuwait to guide the forces who were fighting Kassem. There is evidence that they supplied the conspirators with lists of people who had to be eliminated immediately in order to ensure success. The relationship between the Americans and the Ba'ath Party at that moment in time was very close indeed. And that continued for some time after the coup. And there was an exchange of information between the two sides. For example it was one of the first times that the United States was able to get certain models of Mig fighters and certain tanks made in the Soviet Union. That was the bribe. That was what the Ba'ath had to offer the United States in return for their help in eliminating Kassem. Do we know to what extent Saddam Hussein was involved in the killings when he came back from Cairo? I have documented over seven hundred people who were eliminated, mostly on an individual basis, after the 1963 coup. And they were eliminated based on lists supplied by the CIA to the Ba'ath Party. So the CIA and the Ba'ath were in the business of eliminating communists and leftists who were dangerous to the Ba'ath's take-over. The coup took place in April, Saddam Hussein did not return to Iraq until May. But he went to work immediately. He became an interrogator in the Fellaheen and Muthaqafeen detention camps. They are camps where they kept communists and fellow travellers, after they took power. And in interrogating people in those camps, he used torture, and undoubtedly like everybody else involved in this activity, eliminated people. In 1963 he was still one of the party's toughs, one of the party's thugs if you wish. Jumping forward a few years to 1967 and the Arab-Israeli conflict, we've heard that the Soviets then looked to Baghdad in terms of gaining influence in the Middle East. And the Ba'ath Party also wants to get back into power. Describe in the run-up to the 1968 coup, the Cold War dynamics of what was going on in the Middle East, and in particular Iraq, and how the Ba'ath Party was able to use those dynamics to help them get back into power. In 1968, Iraq had a weak president who was beholden to Nasser. A follower of Nasser. But the defeat of [the Arabs by Israel] in 1967 meant that whatever government was in power when that defeat took place had to go. So the Ba'ath saw an opportunity in this and they thought the time has come for them to take over the country again. The background was extremely interesting. There were two things happening within Iraq at that time. They were developing their own oil and very close to giving the concessions for huge new oil fields, to the USSR and France. And the price of sulpher had shot up so greatly that they were about to mine the sulpher mines in the north and sell it in the world market. The United States didn't want either to happen. The United States wanted the oil for American oil companies; they wanted the sulpher for themselves. They thought that if Iraq went to the Soviet Union or France, Iraq would be lost to them. In this they were joined by the Ba'ath Party. The Party used the concessions for oil and sulpher as a bargaining point to endear itself once again to America. And they arrived once again at some kind of an agreement of collaboration between the two sides. On the American side negotiating for both the oil and sulpher was a well-known personality, Robert Anderson, the former Secretary of Treasury under Eisenhower. He met secretly with the Ba'ath and they agreed that if they took over power these concessions will be given to the United States. And so once again the United States was in the business of supporting the Ba'ath office for the government of Iraq. The Ba'ath was successful. This time Saddam Hussein played a key role. He was one of the people who donned a military uniform--though he's not a military man--and attacked the presidential palace. And occupied it. The President being weak, surrendered immediately. Two weeks after they took over power on the 17th of July 1968, there was what they call 'the correction movement.' That meant getting rid of the non-Ba'ath elements in the coup, and Saddam was prominent in that. As a matter of fact he held a gun to the head of the Prime Minister and said 'you're going with me to the airport because you're leaving this country.' And the guy pleaded with him, said 'I have family, I have a wife and kids.' And Saddam said well as long as you behave, they'll be fine. He took him to the airport, he put him in a plane, he deported him, and of course years after, he assassinated him in front of the Intercontinental Hotel in London. The man couldn't escape him in the long run. ... And you saw up close the willingness of some of these countries and companies to work with him and the willingness of their governments to approve these various exports? Most of Saddam's requests to Western governments were positively received. If there was the occasional no by a government, he went to another place. And he got what he wanted. There were no constraints on getting what he wanted. He got it in time. Time was the only limit to what Saddam was capable of achieving. He got blueprints to help make chemical warfare plans from the United States. Everybody accused the Europeans of that. It was actually an American company and writers in New York would supply him with this blueprints. The U.S. government knew about it. He got offers for fighter bombers from both the UK and France. For helicopters, for an atomic reactor from France. For suits against atomic biological and chemical warfare from the UK. All of these things took place. Nobody basically said no. Saddam was not stopped through any denial of equipment he needed. He was occasionally stopped through policy. But that didn't last long. And what gave the whole program of acquiring unconventional weapons an impetus was in the 1970s. The main aim of the West was to pry Saddam away from Russia. And in order to do that, they were bribing him. They were giving him everything he wanted. In the 1980s, the reasons changed [for helping Saddam]. ... Khomeini appeared on the scene and the West decided that Saddam was the lesser of two evils. And they continued to support him and give him what he wanted. In this case, including credit. The third phase of this relationship was immediately after the cessation of hostilities in the Iran-Iraq war. When Saddam seemingly came out victorious. All of a sudden he was sitting on top of a million-man tested army, unconventional weapons and he was broke, and restless. He became dangerous. He had to do something in order to survive. This was followed by a series of incidents which led to a crisis, the discovery of the supergun. The discovery of the atomic triggers. Saddam threatening the American fleet in the Gulf. Things like that. And the whole thing of course culminated in his invasion of Kuwait and we know what followed that. here
boy -- just curious....not trying to put you on the defensive. would you say you hate the United States?? or just strongly dislike??? or what?
boy: That's actually a good read. But don't you find it the least bit curious that every reported encounter with the CIA that Saddam had was covert? That's just another way of saying "it might or might not have happened". Of course, in your read on things, any conspiracy is a good conspiracy, right? And if you can blame the US for every evil Saddam has done, then do it. Right, boy? Funny how you defend this man. I wonder...
I've become curious. Why hasn't the ebola virus been mentioned more as a potential candidate for terrrorist use? It seems more deadly, and less treatable than anthrax or smallpox...
haven: Funny you should mention it, there's been another outbreak... in Africa, where it's relatively common. Al Qaeda has apparently been playing around with CCHF (Crimean Congo Hemmoragic Fever), Ebola's goat-hitching cousin. Iran and Pakistan have reported hundreds of cases in the past three months along border areas. Curiously, that little tidbit hasn't made the national media... But the answer to your question is this: it is too lethal, too quick. HF patients usually die before they can pass it on. Anthrax is actually not a vehicle that can be used for a mass attack; it's more amenable to single-incident, mass casualty situations. It's not contagious, and it's highly treatable. Smallpox... The scourge that wiped out many a South American empire. It is highly contagious (airborne virus), and only treatable in the best of cases. Unless the victim has been vaccinated - and any American under the age of 30 has not - then it carries about a 30% mortality rate, with another 60% or so being severely disfigured or handicapped from it. But back to the original question - Ebola is hard to find. It appears to originate from the Congo, and CDC attempts to find the source vector have been unsuccessful. We literally cannot find its biological house, though we know one exists. The only ways to get Ebola right now woulkd be to either steal a sample from the CDC (or one of its associated research labs), or get some blood out of a dying Ebola victim. Both of which are possible, but unlikely... Much easier to purchase some smallpox from a former Biopreparat scientist...
BTW, good thread for a newbie. And a good post to start the thread off. And props to myself for this shameless attempt to get to 2K...
