The Right Coast

July 02, 2004
 
Saddam a hostage?
By Tom Smith

They do things differently in the Middle East. Debka's interesting take.
Another typically pessimistic take by debka on the early handover. I take everything with a grain of salt, including debka, but their perspective is informed, even if I suspect some of it is psy-war coming from some faction or other in the Israel army/intel world. I can tell they really want the Sharon plan to fail; other than that, their agenda is somewhat mysterious to me. Still, they convey what an incredible scorpions' nest the M.E. is, which is both the best argument for, and against, Bush's vision. And shoot, I guess I missed this in the New York Times:

This danger was directly addressed by Charles Duelfer, head of the US Iraqi Survey team assigned with the hunt for weapons of mass destruction, in an interview with Fox TV on Thursday, June 24. He revealed the discovery by his group of at least ten or twelve artillery shells filled with sarin and mustard, adding that they are finding new WMD evidence “almost every day.” Even if the shells had degraded over time, he stressed, they were still capable of killing dozens of people. He warned both soldiers and civilians in Iraq to carry gas masks and have access to chem-bio suits. Instructions to this effect have been issued to American troops in Iraq.

And this.

And more non-news news here on the Fox story.

Here's something from the "Omega" intelligence letter. I don't know whether it's reliable, but it's plausible enough.