Pacific Views
You've been had. You've been took. You've been hoodwinked, bamboozled, led astray, run amok. - Malcolm X
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| Pacific ViewsYou've been had. You've been took. You've been hoodwinked, bamboozled, led astray, run amok. - Malcolm X |
A news report saying that US defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld offered freedom to Saddam is circulating in the Israeli, Indian, and Turkish press. (Possibly in other places, too. Those are just the ones we've seen.) It appears to have originated with Ynetnews in Israel. Here's the important part of the Ynetnews report:
U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld paid former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein a surprise visit during his trip to Iraq two weeks ago, an Arab newspaper reported on Thursday.
Only a few Iraqi officials in Jordan knew about this meeting, the London based Al-Quds Al-Arabi daily newspaper reported. It said Rumsfeld offered Saddam freedom and a possible return to public life in return for a televised request to armed Iraqi terrorists for a cease-fire with foreign liberating forces.
However, according to sources, Saddam rejected the offer.
The fact that this story hasn't been picked up by the major wire services makes us wonder how credible it is. On the other hand, far stranger things have turned out to be true.
And the cynicism of offering to release the man who was so dangerous that the US had to invade his country certainly fits in with the administration's past record.
Posted by Magpie at May 2, 2005 09:53 AM | Iraq | TrackBack(2) | Technorati links |I think the fact that the mainstream media hasn't picked this up lends evidence to its credibility. If it were really fake, folks like O'Reilly would be touting it as "liberal lies".
Posted by: Ben Schiendelman at May 3, 2005 04:03 PMThis doesn't surprise me one bit - nor that it hasn't made the US news. The question in raises is "Who is Hussein considered a bargaining chip with?"
There are other reports that the Ba'athists are reorganizing. There is (apparently) escalating intergroup violence
Of course, this news doesn't speak too highly to either the independence or fairness of the Iraqi judicial system.
Posted by: Rowan at May 6, 2005 04:07 AMNo scenario would surprise me about their bad decision-making and efforts to save face. In a war for oil, where a theocracy and continued instability looms, how better to get a guarantee of oil from Saddam by a continuance of his dictatorship.
They may have naively thought they could come in, get the oil, have the bases, and have the ethnic divisions fight quietly forever, balkanized, more upset with eachother than with us. Didn't work that way.
Posted by: Marjorie G at May 6, 2005 06:58 AMI heard something about an offer of exile on Air America earlier in the week.
Posted by: Gretchen at May 6, 2005 08:43 AM"Well, you see, he's been *marginalised*, so he's really not that important anymore and I don't really care where he is."
Has anyone asked anything about Usama in the past 2 years? Is he just free now or what? Of all the crazy things the Bush dynasty has done, I couldn't believe that they got away with letting him get away.
His followers are the most blood-thirsty group of hate-mongers on the planet, and they don't mind letting Bin Laden go free? That's just creepy.
Posted by: Dave at May 8, 2005 04:17 PM"Well, you see, he's been *marginalised*, so he's really not that important anymore and I don't really care where he is."
Has anyone asked anything about Usama in the past 2 years? Is he just free now or what? Of all the crazy things the Bush dynasty has done, I couldn't believe that they got away with letting him get away.
His followers are the most blood-thirsty group of hate-mongers on the planet, and they don't mind letting Bin Laden go free? That's just creepy.
Posted by: Dave at May 8, 2005 04:17 PM