Intelligence picks up signs Saddam incommunicado with military after attack

AP | 3/20/03 | JOHN J. LUMPKIN

[Spunky]

"I don't think Saddam is in the picture anymore."

Neither do I. I saw him bombed with my own eyes. ;-)

[Pagey]

That is the funniest thing I've seen in quite a while. Thanks for that! LMAO.

[1L]

Even if Saddam and his sons weren't killed, U.S. officials hoped the surprise attack would leave them distrustful of their inner circle, suspecting betrayal by one of their advisers.

I've been wondering about this strategy myself, i.e., start flooding the so-called inner circle with rumors about other inner-circle members. Attribute information to them, and then some how make that information come to pass. We can start by broadcasting that we got the whearabouts of the bunker we busted last night by _____ and ______. That oughta liven things up!

[Lael]

Did anyone else hear a report that Hussein was possibly wounded in the attack last night?

No

But that is my belief...there doesn't seem to be a power struggle or we would have picked up something in the chatter. A Saddam missing several body parts and perhaps still in surgery would explain this. Barely alive, and in no condition to direct the war.

[1L]

A great question is why we are permitting Iraqi Bagdad TV to stay on the air.

What I'm wondering is is the Iraqi broadcast communications equipment advanced enough that they can broadcast from anywhere without our being able to pinpoint it. This may sound like a stupid question, but this isn't CNN we are talking about.

[AgentEcho]

Wow, our sateliites are awesome...

;-)

Æ

[js1138]

[finnman69]

Love that movie..NOT

[Revolting cat!]

I wonder if Saddam is going to give his favorite mistresses cyanide

Are you crazy? And have her in the way while he romps with the 72?

[the_doc]

I think it's actually more likely that Saddam is already dead, that he did not survive the direct hits by thirty-six cruise missiles and the four 2000-pound bunker buster bombs.

These were armaments calculated to do the job--and then some!

When you think about it, there is actually no reason whatsoever at this point to believe that he is still alive. (The fact that Saddam is incommunicado is potentially significant in that very regard.) The Iraqi's "live broadcast" of Saddam speaking doesn't add up, and we shouldn't count it as having any significance whatsoever.

In fact, several things about the broadcast positively argue that he is probably dead. According to one report I heard on TV, the "live broadcast" shows technical signs of being a videotape. I think the speech was pre-recorded as a generic rant for just such an eventuality. (Come to think of it, this would explain his tone. He was speaking as an unconvincing dead man.)

See my argument at http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/870163/posts?page=10#10

See also 15 and 17 on that thread.

[the_doc]

I said "we shouldn't count it as having any significance whatsoever," but as the subsequent paragraphs reveal, I should have said "we shouldn't count it as having any reliability whatsoever."

[thepainster]

I guess you could put it that way. Body parts all over the place. "A certain young lady named Alice / Used a dynamite stick for a phallus..."

She had nothing to loose

So she lit up the fuse

And her insides were spread all about us.......

[Spunky]

"Love that movie..NOT"

And why NOT?

[Grampa Dave]

Amen, Brother Travis, Now for the first time, the Iraqis have seen him as a tired, old, beaten nobody counting his final hours. Even alive, this is great psyops against him.

Which is why we haven't seen a tape of him for about 5+ years.

[RightWhale]

when was this guy ever in touch with his military?

That's right. Not on his best day.

[Cuttnhorse]

Naw, he's still alive...Arafat and Saddam are harder to kill than a sewer rat.

[the_doc]

Well, maybe he's still alive. But the speech didn't look live. For that matter, he certainly didn't look wounded or even scratched.

(I think the Iraqis messed up by "admitting" that Saddam was wounded and then pretending that the broadcast was live. The apparent discrepancies in the account suggest to me that the Iraqis are just plain lying about Saddam's status.)

[ambrose]

Good theory.

[Travis McGee]

Time will tell!