DEBKA reports on a "treasure trove" of intelligence gathered in Iraq. Excerpt:
The Americans are sitting tight on the extremely valuable Iraqi intelligence archives discovered at Iraqi intelligence headquarters in Baghdad and at sub-departments of Saddam’s clandestine machine never before known to exist. The only data released are a few leaks to the British media calculated to help prime minister Tony Blair stand up to anti-war campaigners at home and around Europe.From this treasure trove, America has distributed to its war allies some materials relevant to their national security. But no decision has been taken as to the disposition of documents attesting to the clandestine ties of collaboration maintained with the Saddam regime by a whole range of foreign government and public office-holders, academics, media figures, financiers and industrialists the world over, many deeply involved in sanctions-busting. By and large, Washington is not inclined to bare these secrets or make use of them at the moment, except in some notable cases. One is French president Jacques Chirac; another is the head of the International Atomic Energy Commission in Vienna, Dr. Mohammed ElBaradai, who led the nuclear weapons inspection in Iraq before the war.
(Emphasis added.)
If true, this could get very interesting.
Posted by oscarjr at May 8, 2003 09:33 AM | TrackBackThere must be a ton of people around the world just scared as hell that their names are involved. What amazes me is the willingness of powerful people in France and Germany to have allied (or at least partnered freely) with Hussein's regime. It boggles the mind.
What's particularly disturbing is that, in almost all of the conversations about the war, the US is painted as the greedy, selfish country. It was far more selfish for a country like France, knowing the dangers and criminal nature of the regime, doing everything in their power to block an invasion, or even meaningful inspections, in order to save their business contracts.
Posted by: zombyboy at 10:12 AMThank you for the 'heads up' on the news item. A lot of governments are going to be quite shocked to see their names dragged through the mud in the future.
I hope the US and the 'coalition of the willing' take the secret documents into the UN and throw them into the faces of the UNSC. This is going to get very interesting in the upcoming months.
Posted by: economist at 12:10 AMZombyboy:
I suspect that you're correct.
What amazes me is the willingness of powerful people in France and Germany to have allied (or at least partnered freely) with Hussein's regime. It boggles the mind.
I think this represents a calculated gamble on the part of these now-exposed parties. Seeing that the sanctions were largely toothless and assuming that the status quo would persist (or that sanctions would eventually be lifted -- remember the big move for that not long ago?), they assumed that there would be no consequences. I often wonder if this is why the reaction to the election of Bush in certain countries was so strident.
Regarding "greed," see this essay on OpinionJournal yesterday. Excerpt:
The U.S. and its allies took grave risks and showed exceptional courage in standing up against powers such as France and Russia, and their unwitting allies in the "peace movement," who tried their desperate best to prolong Saddam's rule. We now know that many of those "peaceniks" were actually in the pay of Saddam. Documents seized from the fallen regime are being studied by Iraqis and will expose the professional "peaceniks" everywhere.
Economist:
You are very welcome. It will be interesting to see if this information is ever made public. The excerpt above indicates that it is likely.
Posted by: Oscar Jr. at 02:00 AM