Posted on 01/29/2006 11:09:21 AM PST by wagglebee
The problem is that it's hard to know if Sada is actually telling the full truth.
Do any Freepers have any bookmarks for the Jordan incident? What kind of chemicals were involved....(I forgot)
Put yourself in Saddam's shoes. If you had WMD and you know that the inspectors were coming back and that the US military and their allies were coming wouldn't you move the WMD out of the country under the diguise of humanitarian aid? What better opportunity then the breakage of the dam in Syria
Here is an excerpt from an Iraqi Christian website.....
" Born in 1940 to a "church family," Sada is a member of the indigenous Assyrians, who predate Arabs and Kurds. He grew up near a British air base and learned to love flying.
Being a minority Christian in a Muslim country has its obstacles, but not enough to keep Sada from joining the military, training as a pilot and rising to the rank of air vice marshal.
When he wouldn't join Saddam's Baath Party in 1986, he was forced to retire. Four years later, when Saddam invaded Kuwait, the first man he called back to service was Sada. For Sada, it was a deal with the devil.
"If he loves you, it's bad. If he hates you, it's bad," Sada says. The Iraqi despot was "more than crazy. He was a very dangerous man. Only God knows what he will do."
Saddam asked Sada the quickest way to end the war. The quickest way, Sada answered, would be to turn the Iraqi troops around and bring them home.
Saddam was not amused. "If you say that again," he told Sada, "your head will be separate from your body."
When Iraq began shooting down coalition pilots, Saddam put Sada in charge of them. One by one, they were blindfolded and brought to him for interrogation, intelligence agents sitting in.
"I did my best to keep the life of the pilots to best of my ability," Sada says. "I used my rank. I don't let them (mistreat them) in front of me, and Jesus knows I would be very angry about it."
That didn't stop horrendous abuse by others when Sada wasn't around, some of which Eberly recounts in his POW memoir, "Faith Beyond Belief." He and other former POWs later sued Iraq over their mistreatment and won a landmark judgment of nearly $1 billion. That judgment was overturned at the urging of the Bush administration and the former POWs appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. On Monday, again at the urging of the Bush administration, their appeal was denied.
Only recently did Sada and Eberly meet to compare notes on when their paths actually crossed. Eberly believes Sada was the humane captor who stood out amidst the brutality.
"At the time we first met, we were enemies. He was clearly the enemy," Eberly told me. "He was the other side of the blindfold, like anyone else who had put a gun to my head or spit on me or any other level of mistreatment.
"And yet in his mind, he personally viewed us differently. He viewed us as pilots who had protection under the Geneva Convention. He is a big man in the sense that he recognized what Iraq had signed up to, and it nearly cost him his life in trying to uphold that signature."
On Jan. 24, Qusai first ordered the POWs executed. When Sada balked, Qusai accused him of disobeying the orders of the president.
Sada tried to reason with Qusai, reminding him that even the prophet Muhammad once said that if prisoners of war learned 10 verses of the Koran, they could be set free. This only angered Qusai, who threatened to put the POWs in areas being bombed by American forces. Sada urged him not to use them as human shields. He kept turning to the Geneva Convention, which made Qusai angrier still.
"This was the end," Sada thought. "And I knew something was going to happen to me."
He was right. Qusai pitched him into a cell in the same prison as the POWs, and Sada wondered if his head would be separated from his body at last. But even locked up, Sada still had his contacts check on the POW pilots, making sure they were still alive.
After 12 days, Sada finally found a way to reach Qusai: He made the war personal.
"If you kill the pilots," Sada told him, "you will have new war between America and your family. They'll come and kill your father, your brother...." He ticked off Hussein family members.
"After that," Sada says, "he was changed. He thought twice."
Finally, Sada was released from prison. A few weeks later, the war ended and Eberly and the other POWs were released. Battered physically and mentally, they returned home in early March.
Then last fall, Eberly got a call from Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's office saying there was an Iraqi genera l working with the State Department who recalled Eberly from his POW stint and the impressive way he'd conducted himself.
"He was very calm, very confident, very brave and very clever," Sada says of Eberly now, smiling over the "clever" part.
The two men spoke over the phone, then met Feb. 28 for the first time since those interrogation sessions, sharing war stories in Fredericksburg.
"It was a very rewarding experience," Eberly says. "He's a terrific individual."
Today, Sada is spokesman and adviser to the Iraqi prime minister, helping to shepherd his country toward democracy. He shrugs off recent accounts of more violence in Iraq and claims the insurgency is losing power. He's proud of the January elections, when Iraqis chose 275 representatives for their new National Assembly, 60 of them "ladies."
His former boss, interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, just dodged another car bomb. I ask if Sada is concerned for his own safety, and he shrugs that off, too.
"There is always a battle between the evil and the goodness," Sada says. "And we will accept that battle, whatever will be the result. Iraq is going to be a guiding candle in the dark Middle East.
"The good Iraqis and the faithful Iraqis will never forget what the American nation has done for us in liberating our country from evil dictatorship. I bow before the American mothers and fathers for their sacrifices - they lost their beloved ones, sons and daughters, in battle of freedom of Iraq.
"Freedom is a very dear thing," says the general who risked his freedom and more for two dozen strangers. "You don't get it easy."
Here's the url
http://www.christiansofiraq.com/courage.html
I wonder if he "cooperated" in the collapse.
Yet the LibRats will still chant "Bush Lied"
If that had been the case then the Jordanians would have given the US access to the weapons grade chemicals that were supposedly captured. The Jordanians reported that they had found a home-made chemical factory that was mixing large quantities of chemicals/pesticides in an attempt to produce a hybrid chemical bomb. I fear that a lot of people are being duped from their hard earned money by the former Iraqi commander. He has seen an easy market to make money on the back of a book.
Former Iraqi Gen. Sada at this point seems very suspect (for a variety of reasons). That doesn't mean everything he is saying is complete BS.....but as is customary throughout the ME....while there may be bits of truth...there is also a lot of BS piled in between.
If all of this is true, he would probably know the status and location of Michael Scott Speicher.
That's right...it is coming back to me now. It was 'reported' to be homemade chemicals.
No doubt he is trying to make money on his book, but that alone should not be a reason to discount everything he says in the book. I know what you mean though.
There were truckloads of chemical weapons and explosives. It would have been highly destructive of a couple city blocks.
"There were truckloads of chemical weapons and explosives. It would have been highly destructive of a couple city blocks."
I remember when it happened, just not the particulars on the types of chemicals.
Heres some more info..
http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110005016
Thanks for the link. It says 'nerve and blister agents'. I wonder if the US ever got more specific details? Seems the whole incident just fell of the radar screen of the LSM.
Again, I would love to believe this. But since it's coming from the unbiased left wing media, I just can't help but wonder if there is an agenda behind it all.
bump
Nice!
I think the attack was foiled. No doubt the powers that be have known for a long time a lot more than is being reported. Nice to know that Bush can keep a secret even if doing such enables the mainstream press to continue to lie in an attempt to harm the administration.
OK Great...more confusion...did the Syrians take them...or former Soviet or present Russian Spetnaz groups to heaven-knows-where ?
This issue should be cleared up. Its lingering just adds to the uncertainty. I'm tired of these ephemeral reports that never get followed up on or verified.
Or could it be that our mortal enemies already have WMDs ready to go and the Western governments don't want to let their citizens know about the real state of matters...and ultimately how they have failed to meet a clear and present danger ?
"Nice to know that Bush can keep a secret even if doing such enables the mainstream press to continue to lie in an attempt to harm the administration."
True...I have always believed President Bush is holding back info for our national security, even though it hurts his poll numbers and helps the LSM.
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