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memes
Blessed



Registered: 01/11/05
Posts: 27,785
Loc: In a Tree
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Saddam's Confessions:
#7949515 - 01/29/08 08:31 AM (16 years, 3 days ago) |
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Read this on another board, figured i'd pass it on. Ran a search - no equivolent results. --------------------------------------------------------
From 60 Minutes
Key points from 6 full pages of a 23 minute interview:
* Saddam was a clean freak and he used the wipes to clean his cell and wipe off fresh fruit. Saddam wrote poetry every day.
* Saddam accused Kuwait of wrecking Iraq’s economy by stealing oil and demanding repayment of loans. But the brutal invasion was triggered by personal insult. He had sent his foreign minister to Kuwait to meet with the Emir Al Sabah, the former leader of Kuwait, to try to resolve some of these issues. And the Emir told the foreign minister of Iraq that he would not stop doing what he was doing until he turned every Iraqi woman into a $10 prostitute. And that really sealed it for him, to invade Kuwait. He wanted to punish Emir Al Sabah, for saying that. The U.S. ejected Saddam from Kuwait, leaving the dictator with no love lost for the Bush family.
* He didn't like President [George W.] Bush. He would have liked meeting President Reagan. He thought he was a great leader. Honorable man. He liked President Clinton. But he did not like President Bush, the first or the current.
* How could U.S. forces have missed him when he was the chief target of 50 air strikes in the shock and awe campaign? He said that he was at one of the locations. He said it in a kind of a bragging fashion, that he was there, but that we missed him. He changed the way he traveled. He got rid of his normal vehicles. He got rid of the protective detail he traveled with. Really just to change his signature so he would be much harder to identify.
* And what about the body doubles, the decoys? He said no. He said that, really there weren't anybody that could play him. No one could fit the role of being Saddam's double.
* He said that most of the WMD had been destroyed by the U.N. inspectors in the '90s. And those that hadn't been destroyed by the inspectors were unilaterally destroyed by Iraq. So why keep the secret? Why put your nation at risk, why put your own life at risk to maintain this charade? It was very important for him to project that because that was what kept him, in his mind, in power. That capability kept the Iranians away. It kept them from reinvading Iraq. Before his wars with America, Saddam had fought a ruinous eight year war with Iran and it was Iran he still feared the most. He believed that he couldn't survive without the perception that he had weapons of mass destruction.
* He said he initially miscalculated President Bush. And Bush's intentions. He thought the United States would retaliate with the same type of attack as we did in 1998 under Operation Desert Fox. Which was a four-day aerial attack. Saddam expected some kind of an air campaign and that he could he survive that. He survived that once. And then he was willing to accept that type of attack. That type of damage. Saddam initially didn't believe that the United States would invade Iraq. He had asked of his military leaders and senior government officials was to give him two weeks. And at that point it would go into what he called the secret war; going from a conventional to an unconventional war. He would have liked to have taken credit for the insurgency.
* Among the most important questions for U.S. intelligence was whether Saddam was supporting al Qaeda, as had been claimed by some in the Bush administration. What was Saddam's opinion of Osama Bin Laden? He considered him to be a fanatic. And as such was very wary of him. He said "you can't really trust fanatics". He didn't want to be seen with Bin Laden. And didn't want to associate with Bin Laden. Saddam thought that Bin Laden was a threat to him and his regime.
* Saddam's story was verified in interrogations with other former high-ranking members of his government. He couldn't understand why we would re-elect our president every four years. In his opinion, it takes years to really understand the job and to be able to do it effectively. So every four years he was joking that he'd have to break in a new president. He was relying on movies to get an insight into the American culture.
* Saddam turned up other revelations about one of the most notorious war crimes of his regime: the use of chemical weapons on Kurdish civilians in 1988. Iraq gassed its own people in something called the Anfal campaign to counter Iranian incursions and Kurdish resistance to his rule. Saddam said he himself gave the orders to use chemical weapons against the Kurds in the North. When shown the graphic pictures of the aftermath, he replied, "necessary".
* Saddam intended to produce weapons of mass destruction again, some day. He wanted to pursue all of WMD. So he wanted to reconstitute his entire WMD program. Chemical, biological, even nuclear.
Link: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/...94_page6.shtml
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Syle
Kenai Sigh


Registered: 10/16/05
Posts: 6,678
Loc: WA
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Re: Saddam's Confessions: [Re: memes]
#7949693 - 01/29/08 09:26 AM (16 years, 3 days ago) |
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Quote:
* Saddam intended to produce weapons of mass destruction again, some day. He wanted to pursue all of WMD. So he wanted to reconstitute his entire WMD program. Chemical, biological, even nuclear.
Iraq war justified?
-------------------- https://kenaisigh.bandcamp.com/ <- Just completed the 2021 RPM challenge for February - An EP in one month (5 songs or 20 minutes). Check it out!
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zappaisgod
horrid asshole


Registered: 02/11/04
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Re: Saddam's Confessions: [Re: Syle]
#7949994 - 01/29/08 11:04 AM (16 years, 3 days ago) |
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Always was to me. It took a certain kind of naivety to think he wouldn't once the microscope was off. And the bribed French, Russian, Chinese and UN were fixing to push for the microscope removal.
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Minstrel
Man of Science


Registered: 03/15/05
Posts: 1,974
Loc: Hogtown
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Re: Saddam's Confessions: [Re: zappaisgod]
#7950876 - 01/29/08 03:30 PM (16 years, 3 days ago) |
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If I was in Saddam's shoes, I would definitely have cash going to research those weapons.
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Luddite
I watch Fox News


Registered: 03/23/06
Posts: 2,946
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Re: Saddam's Confessions: [Re: Minstrel]
#7950916 - 01/29/08 03:36 PM (16 years, 3 days ago) |
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Maybe we should have waited until he destroyed Iran and them remove him from power.
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Diploid
Cuban



Registered: 01/09/03
Posts: 19,274
Loc: Rabbit Hole
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Re: Saddam's Confessions: [Re: zappaisgod]
#7951044 - 01/29/08 03:58 PM (16 years, 3 days ago) |
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I think the US would be better off today if Bush had made one last push with the UNSCOM inspectors, which Husein was practically begging for when he saw that Bush was serious.
We could have kept the military nearby and pointed at him for a lot less money, a lot fewer death, and a lot less instability while keeping him tightly contained.
If he got out of line with UNSCOM again, we would have had the support of most of the world invading at that point. Instead, we have a mess there and lost the good will of the world, not to mention a trillion dollars that could have gone a long way developing technology to free us from oil dependence.
-------------------- Republican Values: 1) You can't get married to your spouse who is the same sex as you. 2) You can't have an abortion no matter how much you don't want a child. 3) You can't have a certain plant in your possession or you'll get locked up with a rapist and a murderer. 4) We need a smaller, less-intrusive government.
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Icelander
The Minstrel in the Gallery



Registered: 03/15/05
Posts: 95,368
Loc: underbelly
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Re: Saddam's Confessions: [Re: Diploid]
#7951094 - 01/29/08 04:07 PM (16 years, 3 days ago) |
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It's the American Way.
-------------------- "Don't believe everything you think". -Anom. " All that lives was born to die"-Anom. With much wisdom comes much sorrow, The more knowledge, the more grief. Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC
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Minstrel
Man of Science


Registered: 03/15/05
Posts: 1,974
Loc: Hogtown
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Re: Saddam's Confessions: [Re: Icelander]
#7951134 - 01/29/08 04:15 PM (16 years, 3 days ago) |
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Saddam has been nothing but good for America! It doesn't make sense that they took him out. Look at the 90's: They get to spend billions of paper dollars to hit his air defense every once and a while, he can't fight back, and has never killed an American, but keeps you all scared as shit! He was the perfect whippin' boy; harmless, but could still strike TERROR into your hearts.
Edited by Minstrel (01/29/08 04:16 PM)
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zappaisgod
horrid asshole


Registered: 02/11/04
Posts: 81,741
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Re: Saddam's Confessions: [Re: Diploid]
#7951667 - 01/29/08 05:57 PM (16 years, 3 days ago) |
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I dunno Dip, when do you finally call bullshit on the shell game he had been pulling for years. Do not for one minute forget that he had effectively bribed France, Russia, China and the UN and that there was going to be huge push to just say fuck it. Feh, time was up on the bitch.
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Coaster
Baʿal



Registered: 05/22/06
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Re: Saddam's Confessions: [Re: zappaisgod]
#7952522 - 01/29/08 08:16 PM (16 years, 3 days ago) |
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he doesnt sound like such a bad guy bush is a lot more deadlier he killed so many innocent iraqi civilians by bombing them with our "smart bombs"
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