Former Russian prime minister Yevgeny Primakov made the rather startling claim that Saddam's execution was "rushed" to prevent the Iraqi dictator from talking about his relationship with the Bush clan and with American intelligence.If Saddam Hussein “had said everything (he knew), the current United States president (George W Bush) would have been greatly embarrassed,” said Primakov, a Middle East expert formerly on good terms with Saddam.I have no trouble believing this claim. What I want to know is this: Is Primakov's assertion based on intelligence made available only to someone in his position? Or does he merely posit a scenario that makes sense to him (as it does to me, and probably to you)? In other words, are we dealing with data or deduction?
One other comment from Primakov deserves note:
He also alleged that Saddam made a deal with Washington before the 2003 invasion of Iraq to allow the United States to occupy the country without meeting any opposition.Similar assertions were heard at the time and in the years since, although the usual variant of the tale holds that the U.S. made deals with Saddam's generals, not with Saddam himself. Indeed, fake video was broadcast on the day the statue fell to give American audiences the impression of a battle which did not, in fact, take place.
Still, so far as I know, no-one has confirmed the story of an official Iraqi "stand down" order. Those who want to know why Baghdad collapsed without a fight are once more stranded in the realm of surmise.
Primakov would do history a service if he revealed not just what he knows but how he knows it.
3 comments:
Joe,
When George Bush was threatening Saddam Hussein with dire consequences for failing to comply with U.N. requests for WMD data in 2002, Saddam Hussein compiled a 12,000 page document which was delivered to the U.N. Security Council in New York City. The U.S. Ambassador immediately stole the document, whereupon it was sent to Washington, D.C. because 'there were high speed copiers there', unlike in New York City. What sped up the copying process was that the 12,000 pages got redacted and the U.N. got copies of a 4,000 page report that completely erased all evidence of U.S. and UK corporate and government involvement in Saddam Hussein's 1980 chemical and biological weapons programs. Scott Ritter has all the skinny on this and on most everything else that Primakov has a perfect reason to know about concerning U.S. government's collusion with and double-crossing of Saddam Hussein.
Hopefully someday that high-speed copying technology can make its way 200 miles north to that provincial outpost, New York City.
wow. this is all pretty interesting. especially given the piece joe linked to on the iranian use of russian missles, which puts putin in a particularly interesting position of power in the whole mess.
what i also find fascinating is that, during the invasion, i found (i think on buzzflash) a link to a russian site that had remarkable access to russian satellite and audio surveillance. they provided, for all the world to know (read: iraqi officials), astonishingly accurate data on troup movements and communications between top US brass, and between top brass at centom and the WH!
the whole thing was breathtaking, though sometimes a little boring. but they updated twice a day, and provided some pretty interesting stuff. for instance, they described (actual exchanges weren't available) several arguments between powers that were, including one episode in which tommy franks got dressed down, i think for not moving fast enough, but i can't be sure.
the most salient memory i have of all that was they posted that a decision was made to send in i think it was 20,000 more troops. the next day, the press reported 5000 more would be sent in. then the day after that, 10,000, and finally on the third or fourth day, the total that had originally been posted by the russian site was reported.
i'd give anything if i could reconstruct the site and had captured some of the pages, but i was new to much of this cyber-intrigue, and it didn't occur to me that it would all vanish.
and vanish it did. a day or two after the US took baghdad, they announced they had to disappear. and they did.
so sure, the russians are in a position to know what goes on between all the players. which raises another point we should not forget in all this.
these machinations and posturings are no longer about national interests. in each and every country of any size of position of power, the governments and military and most certainly the spy agencies are operating as protection for large corporate interests. it's all about power play for the resources the corporations crave.
so, when it serves corporate interests for russia to cooperate with the US, they will. but when it doesn't, or when they're protecting internal resources and/or corporations, they won't. my bet is that the shift in russia with putin from their oligarchic hold on russian resources and energy companies had a lot to do with perhaps putin's willingness to sell out to US interests. or at least play footsie with them.
just a thought. in any case, russia is seriously in play again, in a huge way that i don't think the neocons are even considering. after all, they're no longer commies, so why bother? russia is our friend. bush looked deep into his soul....
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