Pssst! Rummy! We Don't Own Australia Yet!

RAAF spied on Iran for US without approval. The US military have reportedly ordered Australian military aircraft to spy on Iran without the prior approval from the Federal Government. The Sun Herald newspaper has reported that Defence Minister Senator Robert Hill is allegedly angry that the RAAF deployed Orion aircraft in a mission to spy on Iran without asking his permission first. ... The newspaper quoted a what it called a senior defence source as saying: "Hill was entitled to be consulted from the start on such a politically delicate decision even if he was expected to eventually agree". [Australian Broadcasting Corporation, December 21, 2003]

Pssst! Rummy! We Don't Own Australia Yet! 2:58:38 PM
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That's Some 'Deterioration' In Just One Day

'Sick' Saddam drugged: visitor. A startling new photograph of a sick-looking Saddam Hussein suggests he is being drugged or given strong medication by his US captors. The man who took the photo told The Weekend Australian last night Hussein appeared very sick when he was visited by Iraqi Governing Council member Ahmed Chalabi two days after being captured near Tikrit. In the photo Hussein appears in much worse shape than when arrested, with pronounced bags under bloodshot eyes and a sticking plaster on the back of his right hand where he has reportedly been receiving intravenous injections. Hussein's daughter has claimed her father must be being drugged by his CIA interrogators for him to submit meekly to questioning. ... The photo of a sick-looking and unkempt Hussein showed him being visited by Dr Chalabi, who fled Iraq in 1958 after Hussein ordered him killed, and is now the Pentagon's favourite to become the next Iraqi president. ... Dr Chalabi has refused to discuss his meeting with Hussein ... But the man who took the photograph said Hussein was being kept in a converted bathroom measuring 4m by 2 1/2m, with three fluorescent tubes and several spotlights glaring on the room's dank tiles. ... While Dr Chalabi sat on a chair in a raised part of the bathroom, Hussein sat on his bed in a converted shower space next to a toilet in the recessed tiled part of the room. The room had no windows, and the only other furniture was a wash-basin and a hat rack. After Hussein's capture on Saturday in a hole on a farm outside a village near Tikrit, US officials released photos and video footage showing him with a long beard but generally looking healthy. ... If the photo was taken the following day, as the newspaper reported, then Hussein's health appeared to have deteriorated. [Peter Wilson, The Australian, December 20, 2003]

Related articles:

More Questions on Saddam's 'Capture'.
     doublethink, December 21, 2003

Iraqis Doubt It's Really Saddam
     doublethink, December 19, 2003

Photos of Uday and Qusay Released
     doublethink, July 24, 2003

That's Some 'Deterioration' In Just One Day 2:44:52 PM
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More Questions on Saddam's 'Capture'

Revealed: who really found Saddam?. Saddam's capture was the best present George Bush could have hoped for, and then Gaddafi handed a propaganda gift to Blair. But nothing's ever that simple ... But just how did that endgame come about? Indeed, who exactly were the key players in what until then had been a frustrating and sometimes embarrassing hunt for a former dictator with a $25 million (£14m) bounty on his head? For 249 days there was no shortage of US expertise devoted to the hunt. But the Pentagon has always remained tight-lipped about those individuals and groups involved, such as Task Force 20, said to be America's most elite covert unit, or another super-secret team known as Greyfox, which specialises in radio and telephone surveillance. ... Enter one Qusrat Rasul Ali ... [David Pratt, Sunday Herald, December 21, 2003]

To sum up a long story (but well worth your time to read and bookmark):

Qusrat Rasul Ali is one of the leaders of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), "a special forces unit dedicated to hunting down former Ba'athist regime leaders." It was most likely the PUK which, among other coups, figured out where Saddam's sons Uday and Qusay were hiding last July (so U.S. forces could storm in and kill them).

Here's where it gets interesting: Last Wednesday, in a radio interview, a PUK spokesman ticked off a list of places the group had been scouring for Saddam, including al-Dwar, where the deposed president was finally found. More to the point, the spokesman said "the day before Saddam's capture he was tipped off by PUK General Thamir al-Sultan, that Saddam would be arrested within the next 72 hours."

We have been told that, the day of the capture, U.S. intelligence was tipped off to Saddam's hiding spot by an Iraqi arrested in Tikrit, and U.S. officials have made no effort to deny that story; said General Ricardo Sanchez, "It was intelligence, actionable intelligence. It was great analytical work."

Great analytical work, perhaps -- but by whom?

In a statement from the Iraqi Governing Council made the day after Saddam's capture, Ahmed Chalabi said that "Rasul Ali and his PUK special forces unit had provided vital information and more."

How much "more"? It may have been U.S. soldiers who pulled Saddam out of his spider hole, but it seems more apparent with each passing day that they wouldn't have found him had the PUK not literally walked them to the spot.

It's also worth noting the immense man- and firepower on the scene -- some "600 troops, including engineers, artillery and special forces ... cutting off all roads for about four or five miles around." Would the U.S. have bothered to invest that much effort based on a mere tip from some Iraqi arrested in a raid?

If all this sounds like a lot of hair-splitting, brace yourself for the next revelation from the Sunday Herald:

By early Sunday -- way before Saddam's capture was being reported by the mainstream Western press -- the Kurdish media ran the following news wire:

"Saddam Hussein, the former President of the Iraqi regime, was captured by the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan. A special intelligence unit led by Qusrat Rasul Ali, a high-ranking member of the PUK, found Saddam Hussein in the city of Tikrit, his birthplace. Qusrat's team was accompanied by a group of US soldiers. Further details of the capture will emerge during the day; but the global Kurdish party is about to begin!"

By the time Western press agencies were running the same story, the emphasis had changed, and the ousted Iraqi president had been "captured in a raid by US forces backed by Kurdish fighters."

Rasul Ali himself, meanwhile, had already been on air at the Iranian satellite station al-Alam insisting that his "PUK fighters sealed the area off before the arrival of the US forces".

By late Sunday as the story went global, the Kurdish role was reduced to a supportive one in what was described by the Pentagon and US military officials as a "joint operation".

Said an unnamed Kurdish source: "It's mutually worth it to us and the Americans. We need assurances for the future and they need the kudos of getting Saddam."

The Herald report concludes that it "would be all to easy to dismiss the questions surrounding the PUK role as conspiracy theory. After all, almost every major event that affects the Arab world prompts tales that are quickly woven into intricate shapes and patterns, to demonstrate innocence, seek credit or apportion blame. Saddam's capture is no exception," and suggests that this is all very interesting stuff, but perhaps not the great conspiracy some may think.

Perhaps not. On the other hand, in the wake of so many unanswered questions surrounding so many events (think Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, for another example of a very curious "capture"), and in light of the Bush administration's propensity for "setting the stage," one cannot help but wonder how much "glory" the U.S. really deserves.

Related articles:

AFP: Saddam Not 'Caught' by U.S. Troops
     doublethink, December 20, 2003

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



More Questions on Saddam's 'Capture' 2:37:09 PM
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Just When the Kurds-Got-Saddam Story Breaks...

The DHS, right on cue, raises the "terror alert" to orange.

Move along, nothing to see here... Oh, look, a three-headed monkey!

Second thought, as soon as Tom Ridge advised 'Murkins to do their part and watch for any "suspicious packages": Guess we'd better call in the bomb squad for anything wrapped & unrecognizable under the tree Thursday morning. Oh, well, at least there weren't any duct-tape edicts this time. Guess they finally figured out that if a plane is about to drop out of the sky, sealing oneself into an airless room isn't going to provide a whole lot of protection.

Third thought: Tom Ridge is about the least offensive public mouthpiece for the Bush admin. Sad, really, that if fate demanded we put up with a Republican in the White House, it couldn't be somebody like Tom Ridge, off whom the arrogance does not simply drip, and who at least appears willing to field unscreened questions, and who can pronounce words of more than two syllables without his synapses visibly misfiring.

Just When the Kurds-Got-Saddam Story Breaks... 12:20:48 PM
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