Posted on 01/24/2008 12:42:30 PM PST by james500
Saddam Hussein initially didn't think the U.S. would invade Iraq to destroy weapons of mass destruction, so he kept the fact that he had none a secret to prevent an Iranian invasion he believed could happen. The Iraqi dictator revealed this thinking to George Piro, the FBI agent assigned to interrogate him after his capture.
Piro, in his first television interview, relays this and other revelations to 60 Minutes correspondent Scott Pelley this Sunday, Jan. 27, at 7 p.m. ET/PT.
Piro spent almost seven months debriefing Saddam in a plan based on winning his confidence by convincing him that Piro was an important envoy who answered to President Bush. This and being Saddam's sole provider of items like writing materials and toiletries made the toppled Iraqi president open up to Piro, a Lebanese-American and one of the few FBI agents who spoke Arabic. "He told me he initially miscalculated... President Bush’s intentions. He thought the United States would retaliate with the same type of attack as we did in 1998...a four-day aerial attack," says Piro. "He survived that one and he was willing to accept that type of attack." "He didn't believe the U.S. would invade?" asks Pelley, "No, not initially," answers Piro.
Once the invasion was certain, says Piro, Saddam asked his generals if they could hold the invaders for two weeks. "And at that point, it would go into what he called the secret war," Piro tells Pelley. But Piro isn’t convinced that the insurgency was Saddam's plan. "Well, he would like to take credit for the insurgency," says Piro.
(Excerpt) Read more at cbsnews.com ...
The lame-stream media will NOT say that out loud. It will just pass down the memory hole.
I thought that was Karl Rove. ;-)
If we hadn’t invaded, we’d be in the same situation with Iraq that we are in with Iran right now, only it’d be far worse.
So when we gave him the deadline he still wasnt willing to come clean? What part of 100,000 troops being sent to the gulf did he not understand?
and the dem/lib pummeling continues.....
“A Saddam supporting terrorists with weapons of mass destruction IS the worst alternative, and is worse than a “messy” post-Saddam chaos. “
Check back in 15 more years. I don’t think the long-term benefits vs. negatives can be reliably judged this fast, especially if the US essentially abandons the country and leaves a power vacuum Iran can help fill.
Also, re your WMD attack upon americans, note that the most flagrant nuclear proliferator the american public knows of (DPRK, who apparently has sent material to Syria!!), is still enjoying the 6-party talks and negotiations to get off the various blacklists. If they are sending stuff to Syria of all places, where else might they be? I have and continue to regard them as a far bigger problem than Iraq ever was, and believe if someone scans my posts from 2002-2003 I said so many times.
Is it too late for a Darwin Award?
“Some have said we must not act until the threat is imminent. Since when have terrorists and tyrants announced their intentions, politely putting us on notice before they strike?
If this threat is permitted to fully and suddenly emerge, all actions, all words and all recriminations would come too late. Trusting in the sanity and restraint of Saddam Hussein is not a strategy, and it is not an option.”
Some people forget these words.
Saddam not having WMD and not declaring that fact makes ZERO sense.
Why get rid of them at all then? Was he afraid they were going to leak?
> I thought that was Karl Rove <
I think you’re correct. After all, since Karl Rove left the White House, not a single hurricane has hit New Orleans.
I think there are deeper reasons for the administrations apparent ineptitude on the WMD. I think many weapons did exist and they were moved - probably to Syria or Libya .
1) The U.S. does not want to let on that we know where they are (they may have already got the nuke material from Libya).
2) We don't want people to panic because they still exist,
3) We don't want to admit we closed the barn door after the horse ran away.
> If we hadn’t invaded, we’d be in the same situation with Iraq that we are in with Iran right now, only it’d be far worse. <
Agreed. And the Dhimmiqrats would be screaming bloody murder that Bush didn’t go after S. Hussein when he had the chance.
They’d use it as evidence that he’s “propping up dictators”, contributing to the “root causes of terrorism” and hurting the spread of democracy.
Fair enough, but it may be closer to the truth that whatever the situation is in Iraq 15 years from now will be more the result of later decisions and actions by US and other leaders (for example, as you suggest, a decision by a liberal president to abandon Iraq) than the original action to remove Saddam. Indeed, a Saddam who armed himself with WMDs and thereby successfully deterred an attack from a US-led coalition might actually spur the Iranians to be even more aggressive in developing their own WMDs, and according the CIA (whatever that's worth) the Iranians stopped the weaponization aspect of their nuclear program after the coalition took out Saddam.
Anyway, my larger point is simply that people, usually liberals, often fail to understand that sometimes the choices are between (a) horrible and (b) bad, and there is no "good" alternative.
Jimmuh Carter did not understand that the alternative to the Shah of Iran was not a Jeffersonian democracy, but rather rule by 7th century islamo-fascists. The same can be said of Batista and Castro, and Pinochet and what the likely alternative to him would have been.
Agreed, And I also think Bush hasn’t shown to be a self-absorbed idiot like Clinton who would scream LOOK! I WAS RIGHT! I WAS RIGHT!
Karl was steering the sub! :)
There were even Iraqi "witnesses" for their missile test (the one that flew over Japan).
Saddam WAS planning on not creating, but buying his WMD’s from outside sources so he could (like he said) “March through the gates of Jerusalem” !
Yup, the liar about WMD’s was Saddam Hussein, who fooled every intelligence service in the world into thinking he had a much bigger program than he actually did, with the perpetual cat-and-mouse games with the various UN inspection regimes.
Yeah right. After the invasion the US military found over 500 missiles with Chemmicals in them (The report wasn't declassified until years later). Too late for Bush to recover from the MSM offensive about Bush lied. The Iraqi Fedayeen used some chemical munitions in post invasion roadside bombs. The second in command of the Iraqi Air Force said they loaded up most of the WMD's onto Jet Passneger planes and flew them to Syria, pre invasion. The MSM ignored these articles of course but they were posted here on FR at the time.
BUMP!
An OUTSTANDING precedent has been set by The United States of America.
Thank you President Bush!
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