Saddam's Capture: Was a Deal Brokered Behind the Scenes?

[DUreader]

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0104-01.htm


Published on Sunday, January 4, 2004 by The Sunday Herald (Scotland)
SaddamÕs Capture: Was a
Deal Brokered Behind the
Scenes?
When it emerged that the Kurds had captured the Iraqi
dictator, the US celebrations evaporated. David Pratt asks
whether a secret political trade-off has been engineered
by David Pratt





snip



US Army spokesmen - so effusive in the immediate wake of Saddam's capture - no longer
seemed willing to comment, or simply went to ground.

But rumours of the crucial Kurdish role persisted, even though it now seems their previously
euphoric spokesmen have now, similarly, been afflicted by an inexplicable bout of reticence.

It was two weeks ago that the Sunday Herald revealed how a Kurdish special forces unit
belonging to the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) had spearheaded and tracked down Saddam,
sealing off the al-Dwar farmhouse long "before the arrival of the US forces".

PUK leader Jalal Talabani had chosen to leak the news and details of the operation's
commander, Qusrut Rasul Ali, to the Iranian media long before Saddam's capture was reported
by the mainstream Western press or confirmed by the US military.

By the time Western press agencies were running the same story, the entire emphasis had
changed however, and the ousted Iraqi president had been "captured in a raid by US forces
backed by Kurdish fighters".



snip

[GRClarkesq]

1. PUK got the memo on the media strategy

You have to read those things right a way!

[Dogmudgeon]

2. Alas for the Kurds

They got the Royal Shaft from King George I, and now they're getting the same from His Nibs, King George II.

--bkl

[DoYouEverWonder]

4. That's why they gave us Saddam alive

It's called payback.

[DinahMoeHum]

10. and G*d help The Boy King and Bremer if they renege on the $$$. . .

The Kurds have far longer memories than even the BFEE.

:evilgrin:

[Just Me]

15. Wish I knew what the deal is/was,...

[pinto]

16. my guess, a Kurdish "voice" in Iraq, whatever that spins out as..

Bush Sr. has some amends to make with the Kurds (abandoned post Gulf War I), it fits a Sunni/Ba'athist encirclement, and it just damn well plays well with the Brits.....last is sarcasm.

Havoc with Turkey, though.

[Just Me]

21. So, are you saying,...splitting up the country?

[Just Me]

3. Where are OUR "investigative" journalists in this matter,...

,...I would think very relevant the actual circumstances surrounding Saddam's capture. Are they simply too lazy to follow through feeling satisfied with a staged theatre for them to roll film?

[asjr]

5. Investigative

journalists are a dead breed. We may have to clone a few Cronkites and pre-BFEE Woodwards. Our media are the biggest charades of my lifetime. There is no dedication to the truth--just spin from this administration. I have contempt for most of them.

[IndianaGreen]

7. Our reporters prefer to sit at the air conditioned headquarters

and report back to us the official pronouncements from Bremer & Co.

If we had the same press during Watergate, the investigation would have ended with the burglars, and no one would have been the wiser.

The only freedom the American press has is the freedom for profits, not news.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

22. The mortality rate for reporters is rather high, don't you think?...

Very few are willing to get killed for a story concerning who was the first to capture Saddam.

Additionally, just in case you hadn't noticed, the mainstream media is owned by the corporations that are backing Junior. Reporting stories "they" don't want reported usually puts a major crimp in one's journalistic career because there is nowhere else for them to go.

[Just Me]

25. Yes,...I acknowledge your position,...

It would be very tough even for the journalist who does seek to do pure investigative reporting. I really didn't mean any disrespect towards all journalists and intended my remark to be about the issue of investigative reporting.

[cthrumatrix]

6. that would be embarrassing if word got out the Kurds caught SH...major egg

[TolstoyAndy]

12. Word's been out for weeks

but you had to see it here, or bartcop, or buzzflash, etc.

Whore is too good a name for our press today - it's demeaning to prostitutes to be compared with these people.

At least a john consents to possible disease,
while John Q. Public's brain is wracked with advanced syphilis:
see "Freedom Fries", "Sore/Loserman", "Saddam = Osama" and 100 other examples.

[DoYouEverWonder]

20. Word is out, but then Homeland Security went to Orange Alert

and the media dropped this story and went to all Orange, all the time instead.

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/12/21/1071941612613.html

We got him: Kurds say they caught Saddam

By Paul McGeough, Herald Correspondent in Baghdad
December 22, 2003

Washington's claims that brilliant US intelligence work led to the capture of Saddam Hussein are being challenged by reports sourced in Iraq's Kurdish media claiming that its militia set the circumstances in which the US merely had to go to a farm identified by the Kurds to bag the fugitive former president.

The first media account of the December 13 arrest was aired by a Tehran-based news agency.

American forces took Saddam into custody around 8.30pm local time, but sat on the news until 3pm the next day.

However, in the early hours of Sunday, a Kurdish language wire service reported explicitly: "Saddam Hussein was captured by the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan. A special intelligence unit led by Qusrat Rasul Ali, a high-ranking member of the PUK, found Saddam Hussein in the city of Tikrit, his birthplace.

[ElsewheresDaughter]

8. remember when Bremer made that trip to the WH 1or 2 months ago

before the public capture of Saddam in the spider hole?

i believe it was then that they had Saddam and Bremer needed to stratigize with bushco as to when to make news of the capture by the kurds of Saddam public and how to make it look like "we got'im" ....just my $0.02

[xchrom]

9. reasonable assumption

since nobody wants to confirm or deny the speculation -- one has to assume they communicated about this exact outcome. the kurds after all are acting as our allies for now.
the resemblance though to bush knew about 9-11 is consistantly disturbing.

[nomaco-10]

11. LINK to story reported shortly after capture

http://sify.com/news/fullstory.php?id=13341763

[wunnerfulrobin]

13. why i dont buy it.........

There were reporters at the HQ when the original raid began, and there were 600 troops involved, which would mean there wouldnt be any need to "be backed" up by anyone. And that the area south of Tikrit is not part of the Kurdish-patrolled area. If saddam was already in-hand, why not just wait for 6 months to announce his "capture"? Doing it now would do nothing for bush in nov., as we all know the voter has a short attention span.............

[54anickel]

14. Couldn't hold it in after the Kurd's let it out to the press.

I think the Kurds got him. Now, whether that was the real Saddam they stuck in that hidy-hole is something else.
I always like a good conspiracy, so suppose all these early negotiation behind the scenes verified the DNA and what not of SH. Lets face it he had like 50 doubles.
Did they hand over the real one, or a fake one. Sure got quiet about SH. What about the POW status, the Red Cross visits, the daughters visit?
Things just got to strangely quiet.

[Just Me]

17. Yes, "very quiet" about Saddam,...

,...has the IRC visited him or the prisons of late, or no?

[54anickel]

18. Can't find anything on IRC visits, but looks like his daughters have gag

orders from Jordan

http://www.reuters.com/locales/newsArticle.jsp?type=worldNews&locale=en_IN&storyID=4069615

Jordan warns Saddam daughters not to talk politics
DUBAI (Reuters) - Jordan's foreign minister has warned the daughters of ousted Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein against making statements that "smell vaguely political" while they are guests of the government.

Foreign Minister Marwan al-Muasher told the Arabic daily Asharq al-Awsat in an interview published on Sunday that Jordan did not want Raghad and Rana Hussein speaking about their country's affairs or their father, who is in U.S. custody.

[Capablanca]

26. That is an understatement

Your Statement; "I always like a good conspiracy" Is quite the understatement. I have been reading your posts and find that you are quite the conspiracy theorist. You sure give an awful lot of credit to the mastermind capability of this administration.

[54anickel]

19. Wonder if we'll ever see this guys tape of the capture

http://www.mansfieldnewsjournal.com/news/stories/20040104/localnews/161802.html
Area soldier taped Saddam's capture

snip>
He was standing guard in the street about 50 feet from the hole when Saddam was captured. He had a palm camcorder and taped the capture.

[antiboygenius]

23. Saddam's Capture - WMD on Mars

Judith Miller of the New York Times reports that she has a well-placed intelligence source (Chalabi?) who informs her that Saddam has cut a deal with his US interrogators. In exchange for not seeking the death penalty, he has told his captors the secret location of Iraq's WMD: Mars! President Bush has retasked the Mars rover to search for signs of evil intelligent life on the planet. Indeed, early images from the Martian landscape already confirm the presence of rocks which possibly may contain the rudimentary building blocks of organic life, indicating long-range plans by the future Martians to begin a WMD research program aimed at George Bush's descendants, if human life has not yet gone extinct.

Antiboygenius

[DoYouEverWonder]

24. LOL

and welcome to DU. :hi: