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InvisibleAlex213
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Registered: 08/22/05
Posts: 1,839
Saddam takes Washington's secrets to the grave
    #6412547 - 12/31/06 02:11 AM (17 years, 2 months ago)

How the West armed Saddam, fed him intelligence on his 'enemies', equipped him for atrocities - and then made sure he wouldn't squeal
Published: 31 December 2006

We've shut him up. The moment Saddam's hooded executioner pulled the lever of the trapdoor in Baghdad yesterday morning, Washington's secrets were safe. The shameless, outrageous, covert military support which the United States - and Britain - gave to Saddam for more than a decade remains the one terrible story which our presidents and prime ministers do not want the world to remember. And now Saddam, who knew the full extent of that Western support - given to him while he was perpetrating some of the worst atrocities since the Second World War - is dead.

Gone is the man who personally received the CIA's help in destroying the Iraqi communist party. After Saddam seized power, US intelligence gave his minions the home addresses of communists in Baghdad and other cities in an effort to destroy the Soviet Union's influence in Iraq. Saddam's mukhabarat visited every home, arrested the occupants and their families, and butchered the lot. Public hanging was for plotters; the communists, their wives and children, were given special treatment - extreme torture before execution at Abu Ghraib.

There is growing evidence across the Arab world that Saddam held a series of meetings with senior American officials prior to his invasion of Iran in 1980 - both he and the US administration believed that the Islamic Republic would collapse if Saddam sent his legions across the border - and the Pentagon was instructed to assist Iraq's military machine by providing intelligence on the Iranian order of battle. One frosty day in 1987, not far from Cologne, I met the German arms dealer who initiated those first direct contacts between Washington and Baghdad - at America's request.

"Mr Fisk... at the very beginning of the war, in September of 1980, I was invited to go to the Pentagon," he said. "There I was handed the very latest US satellite photographs of the Iranian front lines. You could see everything on the pictures. There were the Iranian gun emplacements in Abadan and behind Khorramshahr, the lines of trenches on the eastern side of the Karun river, the tank revetments - thousands of them - all the way up the Iranian side of the border towards Kurdistan. No army could want more than this. And I travelled with these maps from Washington by air to Frankfurt and from Frankfurt on Iraqi Airways straight to Baghdad. The Iraqis were very, very grateful!"

I was with Saddam's forward commandos at the time, under Iranian shellfire, noting how the Iraqi forces aligned their artillery positions far back from the battle front with detailed maps of the Iranian lines. Their shelling against Iran outside Basra allowed the first Iraqi tanks to cross the Karun within a week. The commander of that tank unit cheerfully refused to tell me how he had managed to choose the one river crossing undefended by Iranian armour. Two years ago, we met again, in Amman and his junior officers called him "General" - the rank awarded him by Saddam after that tank attack east of Basra, courtesy of Washington's intelligence information.

Iran's official history of the eight-year war with Iraq states that Saddam first used chemical weapons against it on 13 January 1981. AP's correspondent in Baghdad, Mohamed Salaam, was taken to see the scene of an Iraqi military victory east of Basra. "We started counting - we walked miles and miles in this fucking desert, just counting," he said. "We got to 700 and got muddled and had to start counting again ... The Iraqis had used, for the first time, a combination - the nerve gas would paralyse their bodies ... the mustard gas would drown them in their own lungs. That's why they spat blood."

At the time, the Iranians claimed that this terrible cocktail had been given to Saddam by the US. Washington denied this. But the Iranians were right. The lengthy negotiations which led to America's complicity in this atrocity remain secret - Donald Rumsfeld was one of President Ronald Reagan's point-men at this period - although Saddam undoubtedly knew every detail. But a largely unreported document, "United States Chemical and Biological Warfare-related Dual-use exports to Iraq and their possible impact on the Health Consequences of the Persian Gulf War", stated that prior to 1985 and afterwards, US companies had sent government-approved shipments of biological agents to Iraq. These included Bacillus anthracis, which produces anthrax, andEscherichia coli (E. coli). That Senate report concluded that: "The United States provided the Government of Iraq with 'dual use' licensed materials which assisted in the development of Iraqi chemical, biological and missile-systems programs, including ... chemical warfare agent production facility plant and technical drawings, chemical warfare filling equipment."

Nor was the Pentagon unaware of the extent of Iraqi use of chemical weapons. In 1988, for example, Saddam gave his personal permission for Lt-Col Rick Francona, a US defence intelligence officer - one of 60 American officers who were secretly providing members of the Iraqi general staff with detailed information on Iranian deployments, tactical planning and bomb damage assessments - to visit the Fao peninsula after Iraqi forces had recaptured the town from the Iranians. He reported back to Washington that the Iraqis had used chemical weapons to achieve their victory. The senior defence intelligence officer at the time, Col Walter Lang, later said that the use of gas on the battlefield by the Iraqis "was not a matter of deep strategic concern".

I saw the results, however. On a long military hospital train back to Tehran from the battle front, I found hundreds of Iranian soldiers coughing blood and mucus from their lungs - the very carriages stank so much of gas that I had to open the windows - and their arms and faces were covered with boils. Later, new bubbles of skin appeared on top of their original boils. Many were fearfully burnt. These same gases were later used on the Kurds of Halabja. No wonder that Saddam was primarily tried in Baghdad for the slaughter of Shia villagers, not for his war crimes against Iran.

We still don't know - and with Saddam's execution we will probably never know - the extent of US credits to Iraq, which began in 1982. The initial tranche, the sum of which was spent on the purchase of American weapons from Jordan and Kuwait, came to $300m. By 1987, Saddam was being promised $1bn in credit. By 1990, just before Saddam's invasion of Kuwait, annual trade between Iraq and the US had grown to $3.5bn a year. Pressed by Saddam's foreign minister, Tariq Aziz, to continue US credits, James Baker then Secretary of State, but the same James Baker who has just produced a report intended to drag George Bush from the catastrophe of present- day Iraq - pushed for new guarantees worth $1bn from the US.

In 1989, Britain, which had been giving its own covert military assistance to Saddam guaranteed £250m to Iraq shortly after the arrest of Observer journalist Farzad Bazoft in Baghdad. Bazoft, who had been investigating an explosion at a factory at Hilla which was using the very chemical components sent by the US, was later hanged. Within a month of Bazoft's arrest William Waldegrave, then a Foreign Office minister, said: "I doubt if there is any future market of such a scale anywhere where the UK is potentially so well-placed if we play our diplomatic hand correctly... A few more Bazofts or another bout of internal oppression would make it more difficult."

Even more repulsive were the remarks of the then Deputy Prime Minister, Geoffrey Howe, on relaxing controls on British arms sales to Iraq. He kept this secret, he wrote, because "it would look very cynical if, so soon after expressing outrage about the treatment of the Kurds, we adopt a more flexible approach to arms sales".

Saddam knew, too, the secrets of the attack on the USS Stark when, on 17 May 1987, an Iraqi jet launched a missile attack on the American frigate, killing more than a sixth of the crew and almost sinking the vessel. The US accepted Saddam's excuse that the ship was mistaken for an Iranian vessel and allowed Saddam to refuse their request to interview the Iraqi pilot.

The whole truth died with Saddam Hussein in the Baghdad execution chamber yesterday. Many in Washington and London must have sighed with relief that the old man had been silenced for ever.

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/fisk/article2114403.ece

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Offlineexclusive58
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Re: Saddam takes Washington's secrets to the grave [Re: Alex213]
    #6412813 - 12/31/06 06:26 AM (17 years, 2 months ago)

good article, speaks the truth :thumbup:


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InvisibleLuddite
I watch Fox News
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Registered: 03/23/06
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Re: Saddam takes Washington's secrets to the grave [Re: exclusive58]
    #6412969 - 12/31/06 09:28 AM (17 years, 2 months ago)


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Offlinezappaisgod
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Re: Saddam takes Washington's secrets to the grave [Re: Luddite]
    #6413149 - 12/31/06 10:57 AM (17 years, 2 months ago)

Ah yes, the inestimable Mr. Robert Fisk. The very same clueless jackass whose amateurish ranting and fabricating led to the etymology of a brand new word, the verb "fisk" to describe the act of point by point rebuttal of flimsy reasoning.

Here is his take on Jimmy Carter, the second most reviled ex-president in American history:
"I picked up Jimmy Carter's new book, Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid at San Francisco airport, and zipped through it in a day. It's a good, strong read by the only American president approaching sainthood."
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/fisk/article2097774.ece

There's lots and lots of Mr Fisk's writing available. Every bit that I've seen is as weak and speculative as this with a gratifying lack of substance that puts it on a par with the best of Alex Jones and that dipshit who thinks the Towers were brought down with "space beams".


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InvisibleLuddite
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Re: Saddam takes Washington's secrets to the grave [Re: zappaisgod]
    #6413166 - 12/31/06 11:06 AM (17 years, 2 months ago)

Quote:

zappaisgod said:
Ah yes, the inestimable Mr. Robert Fisk. The very same clueless jackass whose amateurish ranting and fabricating led to the etymology of a brand new word, the verb "fisk" to describe the act of point by point rebuttal of flimsy reasoning.

Here is his take on Jimmy Carter, the second most reviled ex-president in American history:
"I picked up Jimmy Carter's new book, Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid at San Francisco airport, and zipped through it in a day. It's a good, strong read by the only American president approaching sainthood."
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/fisk/article2097774.ece

There's lots and lots of Mr Fisk's writing available. Every bit that I've seen is as weak and speculative as this with a gratifying lack of substance that puts it on a par with the best of Alex Jones and that dipshit who thinks the Towers were brought down with "space beams".





There's been a lot of stuff published about Jimmy Carter's money trail which leads back to the Arabs.
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=carter+arab&btnG=Google+Search

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InvisibleAlex213
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Registered: 08/22/05
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Re: Saddam takes Washington's secrets to the grave [Re: zappaisgod]
    #6413251 - 12/31/06 11:43 AM (17 years, 2 months ago)

Quote:

zappaisgod said:
Ah yes, the inestimable Mr. Robert Fisk.  The very same clueless jackass whose amateurish ranting and fabricating led to the etymology of a brand new word, the verb "fisk" to describe the act of point by point rebuttal of flimsy reasoning.






You can usually tell how accurate a journalist is by how much he riles people who watch Fox news  :smirk:

Fisk is the real thing. A journalist who has been on the frontline in dozens of conflicts over the last 30 years risking his life to uncover the truth. We are not talking some Fox news asshole who sits in a US protected compound behind the Green Zone for 2 weeks and comes back thinking he is daring. Fisk is reality - and for people bred on a diet of Fox news and Rush Limbaugh, reality is painful.

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Offlinezappaisgod
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Re: Saddam takes Washington's secrets to the grave [Re: Alex213]
    #6413389 - 12/31/06 12:39 PM (17 years, 2 months ago)

I don't watch Fox News. Do you? You seem to know an awful lot about it.

Fisk is a buffoon on the order of Sy Hersh and Alex Jones. There is not one single thing of substance in that article.


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InvisibleLuddite
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Re: Saddam takes Washington's secrets to the grave [Re: zappaisgod]
    #6413449 - 12/31/06 12:54 PM (17 years, 2 months ago)

Is Fisk receiving Arab oil money like Jimmy Carter?

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InvisibleAlex213
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Re: Saddam takes Washington's secrets to the grave [Re: Luddite]
    #6414958 - 01/01/07 02:54 AM (17 years, 2 months ago)

Not as much as the Bush family  :smirk:

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OfflineGazzBut
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Re: Saddam takes Washington's secrets to the grave [Re: zappaisgod]
    #6415183 - 01/01/07 09:37 AM (17 years, 2 months ago)

Quote:

Ah yes, the inestimable Mr. Robert Fisk. The very same clueless jackass whose amateurish ranting and fabricating led to the etymology of a brand new word, the verb "fisk" to describe the act of point by point rebuttal of flimsy reasoning.





Are you actually going to try and criticise the article in question or just quote tired old dogma you learnt from Pinky?!


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Offlinezappaisgod
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Re: Saddam takes Washington's secrets to the grave [Re: GazzBut]
    #6415245 - 01/01/07 10:26 AM (17 years, 2 months ago)

I did. There is absolutely nothing of substance providing any evidence of anything untoward. Some American companies sold permitted items which may also be used for nefarious purposes. Big deal. We supplied intelligence about the Iranian battle order. Big deal. An out of context quote from a senior intelligence official that you can't tell what the fuck he is talking about, to wit, this "The senior defence intelligence officer at the time, Col Walter Lang, later said that the use of gas on the battlefield by the Iraqis "was not a matter of deep strategic concern"." Does he mean that the US is unafraid that Saddam might gas US forces? Does he mean something else entirely? It's impossible to tell. We helped him rout out communists in his country? Good. He also writes "There is growing evidence across the Arab world that Saddam held a series of meetings with senior American officials prior to his invasion of Iran in 1980 -" Ok Bobby, what and where is this evidence? Crickets chirping. And then he immediately jumps to 1987 with an interview with a German arms dealer "I met the German arms dealer who initiated those first direct contacts between Washington and Baghdad - at America's request." Did the arms dealer initiate the contact or did the Americans? Or did the Americans request that he interview the arms dealer? We'll never know. A truth that died with Fisk's brain.

The paragraph relating to Bazoft is equally incoherent. And somewhat misleading. He fails to mention that Bazoft was executed by Saddam for snooping around a chemical plant. Where did this guy think he was? Birmingham? And the final mention of the Stark attack:
"Saddam knew, too, the secrets of the attack on the USS Stark when, on 17 May 1987, an Iraqi jet launched a missile attack on the American frigate, killing more than a sixth of the crew and almost sinking the vessel. The US accepted Saddam's excuse that the ship was mistaken for an Iranian vessel and allowed Saddam to refuse their request to interview the Iraqi pilot."

"allowed Saddam to refuse?" Is he supporting the idea that we should have invaded then? Or what? Use a Vulcan mind meld to get him to confess?

The man is an idiot. This was a cursory and superficial fiskingg that reveals that he didn't actually say anything at all in the article other than unsubstantiated rumor, out of context quotes and facts and a peculiar inconsistency within his own ersatz logic stream. This is why I immediately dismiss anything he says. I've read enough of it. He's even less credible than Seymour Hersh. Alex Jones and Robert Fisk?????? Tough one. Jones doesn't have a verb yet but that might just be because his name is so common


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InvisibleAlex213
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Registered: 08/22/05
Posts: 1,839
Re: Saddam takes Washington's secrets to the grave [Re: zappaisgod]
    #6415454 - 01/01/07 12:32 PM (17 years, 2 months ago)

I did. There is absolutely nothing of substance providing any evidence of anything untoward

If you're going to talk utter nonsense like this no-one is going to take you seriously.

He's even less credible than Seymour Hersh. Alex Jones

Oh don't be silly. There isn't a journalist on earth who has more credibility on the middle east than Robert Fisk. He's been on more front lines than you've had hot dinners. The trouble is you've been spoonfed so much bullshit by "embedded journalists" that you don't know the difference between bullshit and truth anymore.

Try reading one of his books for an insight into what a real journalist does. Here's a clue, they arn't sat behind the Green Zone for 2 weeks with US army protection. They're alone in Chatila 2 days after the massacre dodging death squads and talking to the survivors for the real story.

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Offlinezappaisgod
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Re: Saddam takes Washington's secrets to the grave [Re: Alex213]
    #6415484 - 01/01/07 12:56 PM (17 years, 2 months ago)

Or talking to murderer's mouthpieces and accepting it as gospel. Because that's what "real" journalists do. The man is such an ass he has a verb named after him and his pieces get routinely pounded into snot. Like the above. Not one single shred of substantiated relevance in the lot. None.


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OfflineSeussA
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Re: Saddam takes Washington's secrets to the grave [Re: zappaisgod]
    #6416101 - 01/01/07 05:47 PM (17 years, 2 months ago)

> There isn't a journalist on earth who has more credibility on the middle east than Robert Fisk.

Eh? Fisk is known for his failure at accuracy with factual data. It is hard to give credibility to a middle east journalist that does not know that Jesus was born in Bethlehem rather than Jerusalem or claims that Al Qaeda was formed in 1998 (oops). He is no different than Bill O'Reilly... an ego on a soapbox trying to influence the sheep.


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Offlinezappaisgod
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Re: Saddam takes Washington's secrets to the grave [Re: Seuss]
    #6416108 - 01/01/07 05:48 PM (17 years, 2 months ago)

Wrong respondee


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OfflinePhred
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Re: Saddam takes Washington's secrets to the grave [Re: Seuss]
    #6416134 - 01/01/07 05:56 PM (17 years, 2 months ago)

Quote:

Fisk is known for his failure at accuracy with factual data.




Indeed. In fact he is infamous for it -- hence the genesis of the verb "to Fisk". Learning about the Middle East from Robert Fisk is like learning about the American economy from Paul Krugman.

Zappa did a quick fisking of this latest offering from good ole Bob just to show how easy it is to do for anyone with a modicum of knowledge of current events and recent history.

*Disclaimer* -- This is not to say everything Fisk has ever written is wrong. I have no doubt he has managed to get a few things right over his career.



Phred


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InvisibleVvellum
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Re: Saddam takes Washington's secrets to the grave [Re: Phred]
    #6416160 - 01/01/07 06:06 PM (17 years, 2 months ago)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fisking

Quote:


The term Fisking, or to Fisk, is blogosphere slang describing detailed point-by-point criticism that highlights errors, disputes the analysis of presented facts, or highlights other problems in a statement, article, or essay.





Quote:


A point-by-point refutation of a blog entry or (especially) news story. A really stylish fisking is witty, logical, sarcastic and ruthlessly factual; flaming or handwaving is considered poor form. Named after Robert Fisk, a British journalist who was a frequent (and deserving) early target of such treatment.





Quote:


Fisking can be compared to the Usenet style of responding to an argument's specific points by quoting lines prefixed with the ">" character (which contrasts with the style often found in e-mail of top-posting a reply all in one piece). The difference is that with a Usenet line-by-line discussion, a large number of tangential arguments often develop while the main point of the original article and original response gets lost.

Fisking is different from flaming, with which it is sometimes confused. Fisking is not merely verbal abuse, although it may contain a substantial amount of derision, scorn or even profanity.

Fisking is similar to the line-by-line method in policy debate, where one debater addresses each point sequentially, dealing with each piece of an argument in turn, as opposed to addressing the entire thesis of his or her opponent.






Sounds like the debate style in this forum and most forums. what's the big deal? Sounds like you dont even know what the term means...

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OfflinePhred
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Re: Saddam takes Washington's secrets to the grave [Re: Vvellum]
    #6416185 - 01/01/07 06:18 PM (17 years, 2 months ago)

Re-read your own links. It describes Fisking perfectly.

The reason it is named after Robert Fisk is that many of Fisk's essays contain errors in virtually every sentence (and sometimes even in every phrase of some sentences), hence the need to follow the procedure described -- a line by line rebuttal -- in order to address it all, rather than simply writing a paragraph or two rebutting the occasional error or overall theme of the essay being critiqued.

While it is true that this style of rebuttal existed before anyone applied it to the works of Robert Fisk, there's a reason it has come to bear his name rather than the name of (for example) William Buckley.




Phred


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InvisibleVvellum
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Re: Saddam takes Washington's secrets to the grave [Re: Phred]
    #6417026 - 01/01/07 11:18 PM (17 years, 2 months ago)

ok. then "fisk" away. let's see whats so wrong with this article instead of personally attacking the author.

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OfflineEconomist
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Re: Saddam takes Washington's secrets to the grave [Re: Vvellum]
    #6417266 - 01/02/07 02:00 AM (17 years, 2 months ago)

I really don't feel liks Fisking the entire article, but we can look at some of the more colorful claims if that's what it takes:

"There is growing evidence across the Arab world that Saddam held a series of meetings with senior American officials prior to his invasion of Iran in 1980 - both he and the US administration believed that the Islamic Republic would collapse if Saddam sent his legions across the border - and the Pentagon was instructed to assist Iraq's military machine by providing intelligence on the Iranian order of battle."

First there's the obviously ridiculous modifier "across the Arab world". I could state that "Across the Evangenlical Protestant world there's increasing evidence that the theory of evolution is a conspiracy perpetrated by left-wing scientists" and most of us would immediately recognize that this is clearly silly. There's also evidence from "across the Arab world" that Israel is "half destroyed" following the conflict with Hezbollah, and that Saddam was holding back the American invasion right up until Baghdad fell.

Then we have the suggestion (I can't say claim because Fisk neatly avoids making one, but the suggestion is clear) that the Americans caused Saddam to invade Iran.

Except this flies in the face of Saddam's own files. After the invasion of Iraq, the US gained access to all the files of Saddam's regime and analyzed them, releasing a report on the findings last Spring. While the files themselves are located on government websites (and VERY long) the summary that appears in Foreign Affairs isn't (available here ).

Quoting from the summary:
"Often, (Saddam) would make a show of consulting small groups of family members and longtime advisers, although his record even here is erratic. All of the evidence demonstrates that he made his most fateful decisions in isolation. He decided to invade Iran, for example, without any consultation with his advisers and while he was visiting a vacation resort. He made the equally fateful decision to invade Kuwait after discussing it with only his son-in-law,"

Now, I know people will want (for whatever demented reason) to believe Fisk over a report from the US military. I would only point out that this report explicitly states that Saddam was attempting to comply with UN Resolutions in earnest at the time of the invasion, so it's clearly not a "pro-administration" document.

Turning back to Fisk:
"I was with Saddam's forward commandos at the time, under Iranian shellfire, noting how the Iraqi forces aligned their artillery positions far back from the battle front with detailed maps of the Iranian lines. Their shelling against Iran outside Basra allowed the first Iraqi tanks to cross the Karun within a week. The commander of that tank unit cheerfully refused to tell me how he had managed to choose the one river crossing undefended by Iranian armour. Two years ago, we met again, in Amman and his junior officers called him "General" - the rank awarded him by Saddam after that tank attack east of Basra, courtesy of Washington's intelligence information."

Let's begin with the rather silly statement that Iraqi shelling was the only bit that allowed the Iraqi tanks to cross Karun.

Quoting from Global Security:
"As the Baathists planned their military campaign, they had every reason to be confident. Not only did the Iranians lack cohesive leadership, but the Iranian armed forces, according to Iraqi intelligence estimates, also lacked spare parts for their American-made equipment. Baghdad, on the other hand, possessed fully equipped and trained forces. Morale was running high. Against Iran's armed forces, including the Pasdaran (Revolutionary Guard) troops, led by religious mullahs with little or no military experience, the Iraqis could muster twelve complete mechanized divisions, equipped with the latest Soviet materiel. With the Iraqi military buildup in the late 1970s, Saddam Hussein had assembled an army of 190,000 men, augmented by 2,200 tanks and 450 aircraft."

Remember that Iran has just undergone a revolution. There were thousands on Iranians, all carrying valuable eyeball intelligence streaming into Iraq to escape the Ayatollah. The Iranian military was disorganized and had been cut-off from its American support. Iraq was only able to get into Iran at all because of this disorganization and structural weakening. But Fisk doesn't want to let things like "facts" get in the way of his telling a good yarn.

The next bit of the Fisk article is particularly amusing to me.

Why?

Because Fisk actually Fisks himself.

Look at this paragraph:
"When he invaded Iran in 1980, we gave him Bailey bridges and Mirage jets and radio sets and poison gas – the Mirages from France, the poison gas, of course, from Germany – and US satellite reconnaissance pictures of the Iranian front lines. I once met the Cologne arms dealer who personally took the photos from Washington DC to Baghdad. The Russians poured in their new T-72 tanks. Saddam's war against Iran – the greatest mass killing in modern Middle Eastern history until the UN sanctions of the last decade – was designed to appeal to both Arabs and the West. For the Arabs who tamely poured their millions into his armoury, Kuwait among the most prominent, his Iraqi sons were wading through anharr al-damm – literally "rivers of blood" – to defend the al-bawwabah al-sharqiyah, the "Eastern Gateway" to the Arab world and Saudi Arabia."

That's from a Fisk piece written in 2000. You can read the full bit here: http://www.zmag.org/hussein.htm

But wait!

What about Germany? Didn't they give Saddam the chemical weapons? Oh, it was the US this time?

When you look at actual facts, you get a picture that looks more like this:


But of course, saying "SINGAPORE DELIVERED CHEMICAL WEAPONS TO IRAQ!!!" doesn't sell as many papers as "THE USA IS F$CKING US ALL!!!" so Fisk finds it more convenient not to let this sort of thing get in the way of his reporting.

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InvisibleAlex213
Stranger
Registered: 08/22/05
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Re: Saddam takes Washington's secrets to the grave [Re: Seuss]
    #6417282 - 01/02/07 02:16 AM (17 years, 2 months ago)

Quote:

Seuss said:
> There isn't a journalist on earth who has more credibility on the middle east than Robert Fisk.

Eh? Fisk is known for his failure at accuracy with factual data. It is hard to give credibility to a middle east journalist that does not know that Jesus was born in Bethlehem rather than Jerusalem or claims that Al Qaeda was formed in 1998 (oops). He is no different than Bill O'Reilly... an ego on a soapbox trying to influence the sheep.




This is the problem with "fisking". People make claims hoping people will accept it at face value and be too lazy to check it out.

The "fiskers" claim Fisk says Jesus was born in Jerusalem in this article. Please read it. You'll be surprised. (Hint: He doesn't say any such thing!)

http://www.counterpunch.org/fisk0513.html

They seem to have misinterpreted a line from Fisk's "The Great War for Civilization." The sentence from the book (p. 501) actually reads, "If this was a war on terror [...] then Jesus was not born in Bethlehem.")

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Malkovich

There. "Fisking" demolished at a stroke.

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InvisibleAlex213
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Re: Saddam takes Washington's secrets to the grave [Re: Economist]
    #6417305 - 01/02/07 02:29 AM (17 years, 2 months ago)

First there's the obviously ridiculous modifier "across the Arab world".

Do you want him to say "Across the Fox news world"?

and that Saddam was holding back the American invasion right up until Baghdad fell.


I disagree. I don't think there's growing evidence of this across the arab world at all.

Then we have the suggestion (I can't say claim because Fisk neatly avoids making one, but the suggestion is clear) that the Americans caused Saddam to invade Iran.


I didn't get this from the article at all. I got the impression the US made it clear they would support Saddam if he chose to act against the country they hated more than any other. I think that's perfectly accurate.

He made the equally fateful decision to invade Kuwait after discussing it with only his son-in-law,"


So why did he ask the US ambassador for her opinon? And why did she reply "We have no opinion on arab-arab conflict"?

Let's begin with the rather silly statement that Iraqi shelling was the only bit that allowed the Iraqi tanks to cross Karun.


That's not what it's saying. It's saying the americans were providing Iraq with intelligence on Iranian armour positions. This is well known.

When you look at actual facts

Where did you get this diagram from? Right-wingers on the board before have many times posted "facts" claiming it was Russia who gave Iraq all their weapons. Are you saying it was Singapore that armed Iraq?

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OfflineEconomist
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Re: Saddam takes Washington's secrets to the grave [Re: Alex213]
    #6417326 - 01/02/07 02:45 AM (17 years, 2 months ago)

Quote:

Alex213 said:
Do you want him to say "Across the Fox news world"?



Opening with a Straw-man? Really?

No, I want Fisk to cite actual sources, and not vague regions of the world, you know, like a responsible reporter. Something along the lines of "According to a Saudi Military Report" instead of "Across the Arab World". Surely the difference between these two must be obvious.

Quote:

Alex213 said:
I disagree. I don't think there's growing evidence of this across the arab world at all.



There was on Al Jazeera between March and April of 2003.

Quote:

Alex213 said:
I didn't get this from the article at all. I got the impression the US made it clear they would support Saddam if he chose to act against the country they hated more than any other. I think that's perfectly accurate



Then where Fisk says:
"There is growing evidence across the Arab world that Saddam held a series of meetings with senior American officials prior to his invasion of Iran in 1980 - both he and the US administration believed that the Islamic Republic would collapse if Saddam sent his legions across the border"

This isn't suggesting the collapse of the Islamic Republic as a US-backed motive for invasion? If it isn't, then it's pretty bad writing, and Mr. Fisk needs to take some classes. If it is, then Mr. Fisk needs to check the facts.

Quote:

Alex213 said:
So why did he ask the US ambassador for her opinon? And why did she reply "We have no opinion on arab-arab conflict"?



The ambassador was asked after the decision to invade was already made. Fisk is trying to suggest that the US was involved before the decision to invade Iran was made, this doesn't check with facts.

Quote:

Alex213 said:
That's not what it's saying. It's saying the americans were providing Iraq with intelligence on Iranian armour positions. This is well known.



Fisk is suggesting that the American Intelligence, and not the disorganization of the Iranian military was the deciding factor in the early stages of the conflict. This doesn't check against facts. The disorganization of Iran was easily the deciding factor, Iraq would have done just as well in the early stages without US intelligence.

Quote:

Alex213 said:
Where did you get this diagram from? Right-wingers on the board before have many times posted "facts" claiming it was Russia who gave Iraq all their weapons. Are you saying it was Singapore that armed Iraq?



The graph comes from the Iraqi declaration to the UN.

But you don't have to take my word for it. Just look at Fisk's earlier piece, which I also linked, you know the one where Fisk explicitly states that the chemical weapons came from Germany. Which is it Fisk?

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InvisibleAlex213
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Re: Saddam takes Washington's secrets to the grave [Re: Economist]
    #6417333 - 01/02/07 02:58 AM (17 years, 2 months ago)

Something along the lines of "According to a Saudi Military Report" instead of "Across the Arab World".

There's 26 years gone. My guess is there'll be a multitude of sources. Far more than he could put in a 1500 word newspaper article.

There was on Al Jazeera between March and April of 2003.


Has it even been mentioned since?

This isn't suggesting the collapse of the Islamic Republic as a US-backed motive for invasion?

No. It's clear enough to me. It's saying the US will support Saddam if he invades their most hated enemy. I think that's pretty likely to have happened. Don't you?

The ambassador was asked after the decision to invade was already made

Maybe. Maybe not. If the ambassador had said "If you invade Kuwaid we will launch an invasion" I'm not sure what would have happened.

The disorganization of Iran was easily the deciding factor, Iraq would have done just as well in the early stages without US intelligence.


So if the Iranian armour was so disorganised how did the Iraqi tank commander know the exact section to cross? Coincidence?

Iraq would have done just as well in the early stages without US intelligence.



No. Even if an enemy tank division is disorganised it's still an advantage to know exactly where it is.

The graph comes from the Iraqi declaration to the UN.


Ok. But you could find a dozen other graphs saying something else.

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OfflineEconomist
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Re: Saddam takes Washington's secrets to the grave [Re: Alex213]
    #6417345 - 01/02/07 03:06 AM (17 years, 2 months ago)

Quote:

Alex213 said:
[Ok. But you could find a dozen other graphs saying something else.



Right, including Fisk's previous report, which cites THE EXACT SAME SOURCE, which I believe is reason enough not to believe him.

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OfflineGazzBut
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Re: Saddam takes Washington's secrets to the grave [Re: zappaisgod]
    #6417393 - 01/02/07 04:25 AM (17 years, 2 months ago)

Zappa, US / UK complicity in providing Iraq with the means to build chemical weapons and then turning s blind eye at their use is well documented. Your inability to realise this reminds me of your inability to realise that there were no WMDs in Iraq before the start of the war.


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InvisibleAlex213
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Re: Saddam takes Washington's secrets to the grave [Re: GazzBut]
    #6417534 - 01/02/07 07:25 AM (17 years, 2 months ago)

Quote:

GazzBut said:
Zappa, US / UK complicity in providing Iraq with the means to build chemical weapons and then turning s blind eye at their use is well documented. Your inability to realise this reminds me of your inability to realise that there were no WMDs in Iraq before the start of the war.




You'd better not let Phrederick hear you saying that, he still believes Iraq had WMD but they were just *really* well hidden!!  :grin:

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Offlinezappaisgod
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Re: Saddam takes Washington's secrets to the grave [Re: GazzBut]
    #6418834 - 01/02/07 03:56 PM (17 years, 2 months ago)

Quote:

GazzBut said:
Zappa, US / UK complicity in providing Iraq with the means to build chemical weapons and then turning s blind eye at their use is well documented. Your inability to realise this reminds me of your inability to realise that there were no WMDs in Iraq before the start of the war.




I eagerly await your linkage to these "well-documented" allegations. Which is irrelevant to my fisking anyway. His article lacks internal logic. This is what he said, " US companies had sent government-approved shipments of biological agents to Iraq. These included Bacillus anthracis, which produces anthrax, andEscherichia coli (E. coli). That Senate report concluded that: "The United States provided the Government of Iraq with 'dual use' licensed materials which assisted in the development of Iraqi chemical, biological and missile-systems programs, including ... chemical warfare agent production facility plant and technical drawings, chemical warfare filling equipment."

There is nothing nefarious there. Note the words "approved" and "licensed" and "dual use". Note also the convenient ellision between "including" and "chemical". My main point, if you had actually read my post was that he didn't say anything of substance at all, nor did he provide any evidence of anything. That was just a cursory internal deconstructionist fisking, not really a deep fact finding fisking which would entail much more research effort than this fool deserves. This time I did try to find that "largely unreported document, "United States Chemical and Biological Warfare-related Dual-use exports to Iraq and their possible impact on the Health Consequences of the Persian Gulf War". Surprisingly, Google only gave me 8 pages of Fisk. What a surprise.

If you have ever read any of my posts you know that, like Ford, I had no use for the existence of WMD as a case for war. What was sufficient to me was that he failed to prove he didn't have any, as per the terms of his parole. When you violate parole you get hauled back to jail. I also believe that it turned out he did have some, though not as much as everybody thought. And Joe Wilson is a liar.


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OfflineBasilides
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Re: Saddam takes Washington's secrets to the grave [Re: Alex213]
    #6419432 - 01/02/07 06:34 PM (17 years, 2 months ago)

Quote:

Alex213 said:
Quote:

GazzBut said:
Zappa, US / UK complicity in providing Iraq with the means to build chemical weapons and then turning s blind eye at their use is well documented. Your inability to realise this reminds me of your inability to realise that there were no WMDs in Iraq before the start of the war.




You'd better not let Phrederick hear you saying that, he still believes Iraq had WMD but they were just *really* well hidden!!  :grin:




Saddam had to have had WMD's at one point, which is what he used against the Kurds in the late 80's.


--------------------


"Have you found the beginning, then, that you are looking for the end? You see, the end will be where the beginning is. Congratulations to the one who stands at the beginning: that one will know the end and will not taste death."

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Re: Saddam takes Washington's secrets to the grave [Re: Basilides]
    #6419779 - 01/02/07 08:00 PM (17 years, 2 months ago)



The commies for chems program  :crazy2:

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InvisibleAlex213
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Re: Saddam takes Washington's secrets to the grave [Re: Basilides]
    #6420564 - 01/03/07 01:40 AM (17 years, 2 months ago)

Quote:

Basilides said:
Quote:

Alex213 said:
Quote:

GazzBut said:
Zappa, US / UK complicity in providing Iraq with the means to build chemical weapons and then turning s blind eye at their use is well documented. Your inability to realise this reminds me of your inability to realise that there were no WMDs in Iraq before the start of the war.




You'd better not let Phrederick hear you saying that, he still believes Iraq had WMD but they were just *really* well hidden!!  :grin:




Saddam had to have had WMD's at one point, which is what he used against the Kurds in the late 80's.




Yeah we know he had them in the 1980's because american firms were sending them to him.

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OfflineSeussA
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Re: Saddam takes Washington's secrets to the grave [Re: Alex213]
    #6420637 - 01/03/07 02:54 AM (17 years, 2 months ago)

> Yeah we know he had them in the 1980's because american firms were sending them to him.

So I am automatically a murderer because I own a gun? Interesting logic.


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OfflineGazzBut
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Re: Saddam takes Washington's secrets to the grave [Re: zappaisgod]
    #6420672 - 01/03/07 03:44 AM (17 years, 2 months ago)

I have absolutely no desire to get involved any further in this debate. As I have already mentioned it seems too similar to the whole WMD debate on which I wasted plenty of time discussing on here.

You view the world through a stars and stripes filter so it doesnt really matter what evidence is presented before you.

Quote:

What was sufficient to me was that he failed to prove he didn't have any




Obviously GWB paid more attention to people like you than he did to the inspectors themselves.


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Always Smi2le

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OfflineGazzBut
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Re: Saddam takes Washington's secrets to the grave [Re: Seuss]
    #6420678 - 01/03/07 03:49 AM (17 years, 2 months ago)

Quote:

So I am automatically a murderer because I own a gun? Interesting logic.




No, but if you gave that gun to your psychopathic neighbour and then turned a blind eye while he killed his wife and children would you be guilty of manslaughter?


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InvisibleAlex213
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Re: Saddam takes Washington's secrets to the grave [Re: Seuss]
    #6420722 - 01/03/07 05:24 AM (17 years, 2 months ago)

Any thoughts on the demolishing of the "fisking" stuff Seuss? That the one about Fisk saying Jesus was born in Jerusalem is an outright lie?

Makes you wonder about the other "claims" they make doesn't it  :smirk:

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OfflineSeussA
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Re: Saddam takes Washington's secrets to the grave [Re: Alex213]
    #6421111 - 01/03/07 10:32 AM (17 years, 2 months ago)

> That the one about Fisk saying Jesus was born in Jerusalem is an outright lie?

Fisk published the claim in a book: The Great War for Civilisation - The Conquest of the Middle East; (October 2005) London. Fourth Estate, xxvi, 1366 pages. ISBN 1-84115-007-X

Source: Karsh, Efraim. Baghdad Bob, Commentary Magazine, February 2006.

Quote:

It is difficult to turn a page of The Great War for Civilisation without encountering some basic error. Jesus was born in Bethlehem, not, as Fisk has it, in Jerusalem. The Caliph Ali, the Prophet Mohammed’s cousin and son-in-law, was murdered in the year 661, not in the 8th century. Emir Abdallah became king of Transjordan in 1946, not 1921. The Iraqi monarchy was overthrown in 1958, not 1962; Hajj Amin al-Husseini, the mufti of Jerusalem, was appointed by the British authorities, not elected; Ayatollah Khomeini transferred his exile from Turkey to the holy Shiite city of Najaf not during Saddam Hussein’s rule but fourteen years before Saddam seized power. Security Council resolution 242 was passed in November 1967, not 1968; Anwar Sadat of Egypt signed a peace treaty with Israel in 1979, not 1977, and was assassinated in October 1981, not 1979. Yitzhak Rabin was Minister of Defence, not prime minister, during the first Palestinian intifada, and al-Qaeda was established not in 1998 but a decade earlier.




> No, but if you gave that gun to your psychopathic neighbour

Ah, so I must be responsible for the actions of those that I sell items. If somebody buys my car, then uses it as a getaway vehicle in a bank robbery, then I am to blame, yes?

(I see your point, and it is a decent one, I am just pushing this to the extreme to see where I stand...)


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InvisibleAlex213
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Re: Saddam takes Washington's secrets to the grave [Re: Seuss]
    #6421305 - 01/03/07 11:49 AM (17 years, 2 months ago)

Quote:

Seuss said:
> That the one about Fisk saying Jesus was born in Jerusalem is an outright lie?

Fisk published the claim in a book: The Great War for Civilisation - The Conquest of the Middle East; (October 2005) London. Fourth Estate, xxvi, 1366 pages. ISBN 1-84115-007-X

Source: Karsh, Efraim. Baghdad Bob, Commentary Magazine, February 2006.






No he didn't. You are being lied to. Read the book if you don't believe me. Page 501. I've quoted what the book actually says in my post above.

The first example of "Fisking" you are told and it's a out and out lie. What does that tell you about the credibility of the "Fisking" people?

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OfflineSeussA
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Re: Saddam takes Washington's secrets to the grave [Re: Alex213]
    #6421389 - 01/03/07 12:23 PM (17 years, 2 months ago)

> I've quoted what the book actually says in my post above.

I missed your original reply. You are correct, context is very important.


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OfflineGazzBut
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Re: Saddam takes Washington's secrets to the grave [Re: Seuss]
    #6421484 - 01/03/07 12:58 PM (17 years, 2 months ago)

Quote:

If somebody buys my car, then uses it as a getaway vehicle in a bank robbery, then I am to blame, yes?




If you knew what the car was going to be used for when you sold it and you did nothing to prevent the robbery you would surely be an accessory.

If you had no idea the car would be used to commit a crime you would be innocent.


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InvisibleVvellum
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Re: Saddam takes Washington's secrets to the grave [Re: Seuss]
    #6427862 - 01/05/07 12:32 PM (17 years, 2 months ago)

A car is not the same as chemical/biological weapons. that hypothetical is irrational. The US clearly sold such weapons to Iraq to help fight or deter Iran, and if Iraq used said weapons, they are responsible for the killings to a minor degree (similar to a a manslaughter charge).

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