AFP: Saddam Not 'Caught' by U.S. Troops

Saddam was held by Kurdish forces, drugged and left for US troops. Saddam Hussein was captured by US troops only after he had been taken prisoner by Kurdish forces, drugged and abandoned ready for American soldiers to recover him, a British Sunday newspaper said. Saddam came into the hands of the Kurdish Patriotic Front after being betrayed to the group by a member of the al-Jabour tribe, whose daughter had been raped by Saddam's son Uday, leading to a blood feud, reported the Sunday Express, which quoted an unnamed senior British military intelligence officer. The newspaper said the full story of events leading up to the ousted Iraqi president's capture on December 13 near his hometown of Tikrit in northern Iraq, "exposes the version peddled by American spin doctors as incomplete". A former Iraqi intelligence officer, whom the Express did not name, told the paper that Saddam was held prisoner by a leader of the Kurdish Patriotic Front, which fought alongside US forces during the Iraq war, until he negotiated a deal. The deal apparently involved the group gaining political advantage in the region. An unnamed Western intelligence source in the Middle East told the Express: "Saddam was not captured as a result of any American or British intelligence. We knew that someone would eventually take their revenge, it was just a matter of time." [AFP via Yahoo! News, December 20, 2003]

The only thing that's surprising about this story, which has been floating around the rumor mill for a few days, is that it made a major international wire service.

No comment from this corner, until it plays out a bit. But if it's true, two things are certain: 1) It's huge news, and 2) it will be buried.

AFP: Saddam Not 'Caught' by U.S. Troops 11:33:22 PM
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Bremer's Near-Miss, & WH's 'Infiltration' Denial

Bremer survived Baghdad convoy attack. America's chief administrator in Iraq, Paul Bremer, survived an apparent assassination attempt when a roadside bomb exploded near his armoured convoy and gunmen fired on the vehicles as they sped away, it emerged yesterday. The attack, which the US-led administration in Baghdad did not make public, came on the day Donald Rumsfeld, the US defence secretary, arrived in Iraq for a visit. Mr Bremer was driving from Baghdad airport on December 6 in a convoy of armoured cars when the device exploded nearby and the gunmen opened fire. No one was injured in the attack. "Yes, this is true, but thankfully I am still alive, and here I am in front of you," Mr Bremer told reporters in the southern Iraqi city of Basra yesterday. Dan Senor, a spokesman for the Coalition Provisional Authority, said it was unlikely the attackers knew that Mr Bremer was in the convoy. "We have reason to believe it was a random, opportunistic attack, not necessarily specifically targeting him," Mr Senor said. [Rory McCarthy and Julian Borger, The Guardian, December 20, 2003]

Glad to hear Bremer survived the attack. But -- especially as this really doesn't appear to have been any sort of organized assassination attempt -- it's only a marginally interesting story. In the course of Iraqi events, it's no different from any other ambush, and apparently newsworthy only because Paul Bremer was almost killed, instead of any of our nameless, faceless ground troops (who suddenly gain faces and names only after they're dead).

What's much more interesting than Bremer's near-miss is this, further down in the article:

"Officials in Baghdad denied a US report that the CPA and the Iraqi security services had been infiltrated by agents feeding information to the insurgents. According to the report by ABC News, documents found in Saddam Hussein's briefcase included a list of Iraqis who had been working for the US authorities. It quoted one American official as saying that 'we were badly infiltrated'. Officials in Baghdad said that the vetting process used by the CPA was effective in filtering would-be infiltrators."

Now, that's interesting.

Keep reading, and you'll find an easy-to-digest explanation of Who's Fighting Whom over there (i.e., Sunnis v. Shias), and why.

P.S. Why do you suppose they kept the lid on the Bremer-convoy attack for two weeks? What was the reason? And if there was a reason, why did it come out now?

Related articles:

U.S. Ops Infested by Saddam Loyalists. [doublethink, December 20, 2003]

Gee, Ya Think They're Sending Him a Message?. Rockets Send Wolfowitz From Baghdad Hotel. ... [doublethink, October 27, 2003]

Bremer's Near-Miss, & WH's 'Infiltration' Denial 4:13:04 PM
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WH Censorship Story Finally Makes WP

This is hardly news to faithful doublethink readers -- or bloggers, or anyone else who actually pays attention, for that matter -- but it's very encouraging that it's finally commanding some print in the Washington Post:

White House Web Scrubbing: Offending Comments on Iraq Disappear From Site. It's not quite Soviet-style airbrushing, but the Bush administration has been using cyberspace to make some of its own cosmetic touch-ups to history. White House officials were steamed when Andrew S. Natsios, the administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development, said earlier this year that U.S. taxpayers would not have to pay more than $1.7 billion to reconstruct Iraq -- which turned out to be a gross understatement of the tens of billions of dollars the government now expects to spend. Recently, however, the government has purged the offending comments by Natsios from the agency's Web site. The transcript, and links to it, have vanished. This is not the first time the administration has done some creative editing of government Web sites. After the insurrection in Iraq proved more stubborn than expected, the White House edited the original headline on its Web site of President Bush's May 1 speech, "President Bush Announces Combat Operations in Iraq Have Ended," to insert the word "Major" before combat. Since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, administration Web sites have been scrubbed for anything vaguely sensitive, and passwords are now required to access even much unclassified information. ... [Dana Milbank, Washington Post, December 18, 2003]


Related article:

FLASH: White House Site Blocks Search Engines. I encourage you to take a look at the file (or Keith Spurgeon's October 24th archive) to find out what pages the WH doesn't want you to search -- which includes just about every WH press release since 2001, all of the State of the Union addresses (small wonder there!), almost every file that mentions the "First Lady," and what looks to me like the entire "kids-only" section of the site. ... [doublethink, October 28, 2003]

WH Censorship Story Finally Makes WP 2:58:23 PM
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Oops

Troops Kill 'By Mistake'. Three Iraqi policemen have been mistakenly killed by US troops, according to reports. The troops thought the men were guerillas when they opened fire near Salman Pak, south of Kirkuk, an Iraqi policeman told AFP news agency. ... [Sky News, December 20, 2003]

Oops 2:21:35 PM
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Third Tanker Blast In A Week

Witnesses: Iraq Tanker Blast Kills Two. A U.S. military tanker truck exploded on a road outside Baghdad on Friday, and witnesses said two U.S. soldiers were killed and another was wounded. The casualty reports couldn't be immediately confirmed. The witnesses said the truck was blown up by a homemade explosive about 7:50 a.m., but the cause was not immediately clear. ... [Associated Press, December 19, 2003]

Third Tanker Blast In A Week 2:20:16 PM
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U.S. Ops Infested by Saddam Loyalists

'Gold Mine': Saddam Hussein's Loyalists Infiltrated U.S. Operations in Iraq. Agents for deposed Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein have penetrated the U.S. command in Iraq, ABCNEWS has learned. As a result, they have the potential to undermine U.S. authority. Among the documents found in Saddam's briefcase when he was captured last weekend was a list of names of Iraqis who have been working with the United States -- either in the Iraqi security forces or the Coalition Provisional Authority -- and are feeding information to the insurgents, a U.S. official told ABCNEWS. "We were badly infiltrated," said the official, adding that finding the list of names is a "gold mine." The United States has been rapidly recruiting Iraqis to take over security in the war-torn nation. Some 162,000 Iraqis have been trained in the areas of civil defense, police and other security activities since May. On a recent trip to Baghdad, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was told by the commander of the U.S. Army's 4th Infantry Division that every two or three weeks the military discovers someone who should not have made it through the vetting process. William Rosenau, who once served in the Pentagon's Office of Special Operations, says the spies could have caused great harm. ... [Martha Raddatz, ABC News, December 18, 2003]

Can't leave this one alone...

What was Saddam doing with a list of Iraqi spies? Does anyone really believe he was running the entire insurgency operation from his crummy little hole in the wall? If you wanted the world to believe he was doing just that, what better way than to plant a list of Iraqis whom you suspect of being double agents, to be produced during a public trial? Not that we'd ever do anything like that, of course. But it would sure be a neat way of proving your "point" that Saddam has been masterminding all the attacks on coalition troops, and a great way to get rid of all those troublemakers you allowed to infiltrate your operations because you stupidly trusted a lot of people you shouldn't have trusted.

But again, we'd never do anything like that, would we?

On the other hand, it would help bolster the case against all those "Saddam loyalists" we keep blaming for various acts of violence -- like this one:

Iraq blast hits main Shia group. An explosion has taken place outside a building belonging to Iraq's main Shia Muslim political group in Baghdad. One person was killed and several injured in the blast which targeted the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (Sciri). The building was used by local militias linked to Sciri - and also civilians. The group has been working closely with the US-led coalition in Iraq - the rotating head of the Iraqi Governing Council is the leader of Sciri. On Thursday, Abdul Aziz al-Hakim said former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, who was arrested last Saturday, would be tried in a special Iraqi court. The day before, a Sciri official was killed in Iraq - an attack the group blamed on Saddam Hussein loyalists. ... [BBC News, December 19, 2003]

U.S. Ops Infested by Saddam Loyalists 2:18:33 PM
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Let It Snow, Let It Snow...

Gate Into White House Closed Temporarily. The Secret Service briefly closed one gate into the White House and stopped foot traffic around it Friday while a white substance that turned out to be harmless was investigated. ... The blocked sidewalks and gate were reopened about an hour after the substance was found, said Secret Service spokeswoman Ann Roman. It wasn't clear what the substance was, nor the intent of the person who left it, Roman said. [Associated Press, December 19, 2003]

Dear God, please help me to be mature and not make a crack joke about -- well, You know. Don't let me blow it goof it up. Oh, hey, I know, I could just say some dope idiot didn't recognize snow normal winter weather conditions. Oh, heck, this is hopeless. Maybe I should just go offline for a while and have a Coke while I think about how to approach this story in a mature way.

SNORT!

Oops!

Let It Snow, Let It Snow... 1:41:33 AM
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Justice Done; Now How About Some Mercy?

"Inmates die in prison all the time. We can shrug and think, 'too bad, those are the rules,' even when it involves murderers who are so weak they can't go to the bathroom by themselves. It's much harder to adopt that stance when it involves a sorry soul who had an addiction problem."

-- L.A. Chung

Plea to free inmate dying from cancer. Beverly Dias... is three-quarters through a six-year sentence for cocaine possession at the state women's prison in Chowchilla, a place so far that her family's ancient cars have not been able to make it to visit as she grows weaker and weaker. ... Prison doctors say she has less than six months to live. ... California's "compassionate release" law allows prisoners with a terminal illness to go home to their families with the approval of the corrections department and the sentencing judge. ... Last year there were 39 requests for compassionate release; only 12 were granted. Some granted release are people who were convicted of violent crimes such as murder. ... What they want to do now, Lew Dias said, is prepare for the end as a family. ... If courts can release people like Vadilla Spragin [who set fire to her husband in 1982], they can certainly free Beverly Dias. [L.A. Chung, San Jose Mercury News, December 19, 2003]



Justice Done; Now How About Some Mercy? 1:22:24 AM
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Abbott Quadruples Price of AIDS Drug

That's right: Blackmail people who have no other options:

Abbott raises AIDS drug price more than 400 percent. Abbott Laboratories Inc. is hiking the U.S. price of an important AIDS drug more than fourfold, citing its sharp increase in treatment value and the costs of improving its formulation. ... The wholesale price for a month's treatment of the protease inhibitor is being raised to $265 from $54 ... Norvir is not a top seller for Abbott but is used extensively in small doses to boost the potency of some AIDS combination-drug therapies. ... Critics of the price hike cited by the Journal say Abbott's intention is to push patients away from using Norvir in drug cocktails and switch to its newer AIDS treatment, Kaletra -- something Abbott denies. ... [Associated Press, December 19, 2003]

Abbott Quadruples Price of AIDS Drug 1:21:27 AM
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