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Agam's Gecko
Tuesday, April 11, 2006
 
SADDAM DOCUMENTS IN THE NEWS
I

t's rare to see any mention of the ongoing translations of recently released Iraqi documents in our big media organisations. One exception was this piece in the Investor's Business Daily (well ok, it's not that big), which is quite good in laying out what is known so far. It includes this summary of earlier revelations:
Saddam is heard on a 1997 tape predicting terrorism would soon be coming to the U.S., while his son-in-law — who was in charge of Saddam's weapons of mass destruction — gloats about lying to U.N. weapons inspectors to hide the extent of Iraq's WMD program.

Saddam, in a tape made in 2000, talks with Iraqi scientists about his plans to build a nuclear device. He discusses Iraq's plasma separation program — an advanced uranium-enrichment technique completely missed by U.N. inspectors.

An Iraqi intelligence document, released just two weeks ago, describes a February 1995 meeting between Saddam's spies and Osama bin Laden. During that meeting, bin Laden offered to conduct "joint operations" with Iraq. Saddam subsequently ordered his aides to "develop the relationship" with the al-Qaida leader.

A fax, sent on June 6, 2001, shows conclusively that Saddam's government provided financial aid to Abu Sayyaf guerrillas in the Philippines. Abu Sayyaf is an al-Qaida offshoot co-founded by bin Laden's brother-in-law.
The article also notes the document I wrote about last week, in which one of Saddam's Air Force commanders requests Air Force suicide volunteers to hit US targets. Apparently some people objected to the source of the translation, which was posted on Free Republic. Ed Morrisey of Captain's Quarters separately hired two translators on his own, to work on the same document, and both results are identical with the one posted by jveritas. I hadn't ever thought there was any funny business going on with his work, but now the naysayers have proof that he's a straight shooter. Check out his other work indexed here.

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