A Short History On The Origins Of Saddam Hussein

[Jcrowley]

<snip>

In the mid-1980s, Miles Copeland, a veteran CIA operative, told UPI the CIA had enjoyed "close ties" with Qasim's ruling Baath Party, just as it had close connections with the intelligence service of Egyptian leader Gamel Abd Nassar. In a recent public statement, Roger Morris, a former National Security Council staffer in the 1970s, confirmed this claim, saying that the CIA had chosen the authoritarian and anti-communist Baath Party "as its instrument." Adel Darwish, Middle East expert and author of "Unholy Babylon," said the move was done "with full knowledge of the CIA," and that Saddam's CIA handler was an Iraqi dentist working for CIA and Egyptian intelligence. U.S. officials separately confirmed Darwish's account.

<snip>


Saddam then crossed into Syria and was transferred by Egyptian intelligence agents to Beirut, according to Darwish and former senior CIA officials. While Saddam was in Beirut, the CIA paid for Saddam's apartment and put him through a brief training course, former CIA officials said. The agency then helped him get to Cairo, they said.

<snip>

In Cairo, Saddam was installed in an apartment in the upper class neighborhood of Dukki and spent his time playing dominos in the Indiana Café, watched over by CIA and Egyptian intelligence operatives, according to Darwish and former U.S. intelligence officials.

<snip>

But during this time Saddam was making frequent visits to the American Embassy where CIA specialists such as Miles Copeland and CIA station chief Jim Eichelberger were in residence and knew Saddam, former U.S. intelligence officials said. Saddam's U.S. handlers even pushed Saddam to get his Egyptian handlers to raise his monthly allowance, a gesture not appreciated by Egyptian officials since they knew of Saddam's American connection, according to Darwish. His assertion was confirmed by former U.S. diplomat in Egypt at the time.

<snip>

The CIA/Defense Intelligence Agency relation with Saddam intensified after the start of the Iran-Iraq war in September of 1980. During the war, the CIA regularly sent a team to Saddam to deliver battlefield intelligence obtained from Saudi AWACS surveillance aircraft to aid the effectiveness of Iraq's armed forces, according to a former DIA official, part of a U.S. interagency intelligence group.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article2849.htm

[mzteris]

1. thanks for the reminder

as to whence he came....

:kick:

[H2O Man]

2. Nominated.

This should be an important part of all the discussions about the death and life of Saddam.

[leftchick]

3. too many messy facts there

americans like their villans in a black and white world.

[Ripley]

4. Americans have extremely short memories.

By design. Loaded up with HFCS and meds for make-believe diseases and stuck in the loop of instant gratification shopping orgies and gossip Phd's, who could expect them to remember THAT?

[Ripley]

5. Gah. Dupe.

By design. Loaded up with HFCS and meds for make-believe diseases and stuck in the loop of instant gratification shopping orgies and gossip Phd's, who could expect them to remember THAT?

[Ripley]

6. Sorry.