[the_Watchman]

I neglected to provide the ABC NEWS link from January. When I went back to get it, the page would not fetch. However, Google had a copy in its cache:

http://216.239.53.104/search?q=cache:Lxi3tTnrTC8J:abcnews.go.com/sections/WNT/Investigation/saddam_oil_vouchers_040129.html+Shakir+Alkhalaji&hl=en&ie=UTF-8

The link that has gone dead is:
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/WNT/Investigation/saddam_oil_vouchers_040129.html

[kcvl]

Ali Ballout (A Lebanese professional journalist) is currently working with Peter Grimsditch (A British professional journalist) on a book about Saddam's dealings with Washington from 1970 up to the beginning of thid year. Ali writes in Arabic, Peter receives a straight translation and edits/rewrites it. Ali is former editor in chief of Ad Dustour. Peter worked on Daily Mail, Express, Sunday Mirror, New York Post among others before moving to Beirut.

Lebanese writer Ali Ballout says that in 1993, after America's Desert Fox bombing campaign against Iraq, Saddam Hussein concluded that a US invasion against him was inevitable, so he secretly put together a guerrilla network in preparation.

Ali Ballout, who acted as a go-between for Saddam with Washington, is soon to publish a book. I spoke to him from his home in Beirut.

ALI BALLOUT: He did realise first that an invasion, you know, will happen because the American administration tried many times to make a good attack at his regime, to topple him from within Iraq, and it has been failed. So for him, you know, he did prepare himself for the worst-case scenario and military invasion.

ALI BALLOUT: Yes, I think, you know, he did start that sort of guerrilla war based on small groups here and there, and the Iraqi leadership, the head, the elite of the Iraqi leadership, you know, doesn't know about it. The only one who knows about it is himself.

ALI BALLOUT: He believed the only way he could make some sort of balance, military balance, by dragging in the Americans to inside Iraq.