The Saddam Files

Newsweek ^ | 4/20/03 | By Melinda Liu, Rod Nordland and Evan Thomas

[Brian Mosely]

After 9-11, as talk of war against Iraq picked up in Washington, the Iraqi Intelligence Service (IIS) became jittery. On Oct. 29, 2002, a memo from Directorate 14 (in charge of special operations and “wet work” like assassinations) reported that “one of our sources in the United States, with a high level of reliability, says the CIA and the so-called opposition have a joint plan to bring ‘quislings’ to Iraq from the north and south to gather information and await future missions. Our informant will be one of them.” The memo suggests, disturbingly, that Saddam had a mole somewhere inside U.S. intelligence.

< snip >

NEWSWEEK’s Melinda Liu was analyzing the IIS documents in Baghdad, Rod Nordland was piecing together another part of the Saddam story from both Baath Party documents and interviews in the southern city of Basra. One former prisoner he talked to, Anwar Abdul Razak, remembers when a surgeon kissed him on each cheek, said he was sorry and cut his ears off. Razak, then 21 years old, had been swept up during one of Saddam Hussein’s periodic crackdowns on deserters from the Army. Razak says he was innocently on leave at the time, but no matter; he had been seized by some Baath Party members who earned bounties for catching Army deserters. At Basra Hospital, Razak’s ears were sliced off without painkillers. He said he was thrown into jail with 750 men, all with bloody stumps where their ears had been. “They called us Abu [Arabic for father] Earless,” recalls Razak, whose fiancee left him because of his disfigurement.

< snip >

America wants to bring liberty and democracy to Iraq. But first the Iraqis will have to come to terms with the legacy of fear Saddam created, and regain the humanity that was frightened and beaten out of them by three decades of grotesque misrule. No wonder Iraqi looters torched and sacked the National Library and stole their nation’s antiquities from the National Museum. They had lived all or most of their lives in a world where neighbors informed on each other for cash; where torturers multiplied their salaries each time they extracted a confession; where police made only $4 a month for catching crooks but could earn lavish bonuses by imprisoning people for their thoughts and words.

[SandRat]

The memo suggests, disturbingly, that Saddam had a mole somewhere inside U.S. intelligence.

Let's see who could it be? Helen Thomas, Ted Kennedy, Tom Dashale, Carl Levin, Bob McDermit, Nacy Pelosi, Chuck Schummer, Hillery Clinton, Bill Clinton, Jimmy Carter, . . . . this is hard; there are just so many possible names.

[Kay Soze]

All the Imprisonment, Rape, Tortue,Mutilation,and Murder were done with the full support of and in the name of: ANSWER, Martin Sheen, Suasn Sarandon, George Clooney Don Cheadle, Samuel Jackosn, Matt Damon

[LadyDoc]

BUMP

But as a doctor, I thought this part of the article was more disturbing.

Most looting started with government offices etc. but reporters shuddered at the "evil" of looting hospitals. This might explain it:

...At Basra Hospital, Razak’s ears were sliced off without painkillers. He said he was thrown into jail with 750 men, all with bloody stumps where their ears had been. “They called us Abu [Arabic for father] Earless,” recalls Razak, whose fiancee left him because of his disfigurement.
....
.... No one is sure how many men were mutilated during that particular spasm of terror, but from May 17 to 19, 1994, all the available surgeons worked shifts at all of Basra’s major hospitals, lopping off ears. (One doctor who refused was shot.) Today, Dr. Jinan al-Sabagh, an administrator at Basra Teaching Hospital, insists that the victims numbered only “70 or 80,” but he’d prefer not to talk about it. He says the ear-chopping stopped before his own surgery rotation came up. “I want to forget about all this. I vowed I would never do it. I said I am a surgeon, not a butcher,” he told NEWSWEEK. He may be forced to remember. At Baath Party headquarters in Basra, once secret documents are floating around the trashed courtyard. They include receipts of sums paid to party thugs who rounded up Army deserters for a fee.

....Arresting Kubba’s accountant was seen as a moneymaking opportunity for the party’s avaricious hacks. Nizar Abdul Razak was swept up in the same trawl for deserters that caught his cousin Anwar in May 1994. Like Anwar, Razak was to have his ears cut off. Kubba couldn’t stop the maiming, but he was able to dicker. “We paid a lot of money in bribes, so they would cut off only half of Nizar’s ear,” Kubba told NEWSWEEK. “One million dinars [then about $10,000], and they let it be done with painkillers.” Nizar Razak’s surgeon (a different one from the doctor who mutilated his cousin Anwar) kissed both his cheeks, apologized and sliced off only the lower earlobe, before moving on to the next victim.

....