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Posted on 04/10/2003 8:42:33 AM PDT by HighRoadToChina
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2003/4/9/163800.shtml
The Death of Saddam Hussein Charles R. Smith Thursday, April 10, 2003 Freedom Comes to Baghdad
In the late afternoon of April 17, 1943, a top-secret message arrived at Army Air Force headquarters on Guadalcanal. Code breakers working for the U.S. Navy had deciphered a critical message sent by the Imperial Japanese Navy.
Adm. Isoroku Yamamoto, commander in chief of the Imperial Navy and the architect of the attack on Pearl Harbor, was scheduled to arrive in Bougainville the next morning. The admiral's arrival placed him in range of American P-38 Lighting fighters based on Guadalcanal.
Unknown to Yamamoto, the U.S. Navy had found a way to break the Imperial codes. American forces used the critical cipher breakthrough to defeat the Japanese Navy at Midway. Now the code breakers had information that placed Yamamoto himself in peril.
The top-secret message sent to the U.S. Army outpost at Guadalcanal outlined the admiral's trip, giving the exact time of takeoff and landing. It ended simply, "Maximum effort should be made to destroy Yamamoto."
In the early morning hours of April 18, 1943, two flights of P-38 Lightings took off. At 9:33 a.m., after two hours of wave-hopping low-level flight, radio silence was dramatically broken.
"Bogey. Ten o'clock high."
In less than three minutes, Capt. Thomas Lamphier was able to maneuver his Lighting onto the tail of Adm. Yamamoto's Betty bomber. Lamphier fired a long single burst of .50 caliber machine gun fire directly into the bomber, sending it in flames to the jungle floor below, killing Yamamoto.
Although the war in the Pacific would last for over two more years, the loss of Yamamoto was a blow from which Imperial Japan would never recover.
Dead Code
In the late afternoon of April 7, 2003, NSA cryptanalysts decoded a frantic message from Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.
NSA sources had intercepted Saddam's message from his British-made Jaguar encrypted radio system. Saddam acquired the Jaguar radios from the U.K. in the late 1980s and considered them to be his most secure method of communication. Saddam used the Jaguar system frequently to communicate with his top generals.
However, the NSA had been working with its British counterpart, GCHQ, to find a way to decode the Jaguar radios in real time.
According to the intercept, Saddam requested that his top officers meet him at a bunker located near the al Saa restaurant in Baghdad's Mansur district.
Within minutes, CIA and Delta Force commandos confirmed that Saddam had indeed entered the bunker along with up to 30 of his top military leaders. The information was quickly passed to a USAF B-1B bomber orbiting near Baghdad.
USAF B-1 weapon systems officer Col. Fred Swan targeted four GBU-31 2,000 GPS bombs onto the Baghdad bunker. The four bombs demolished the building, penetrating deep into the earth to destroy any underground facility below.
It took 45 minutes from the critical decoded intercept to "bombs away" in order to hit the building.
Beginning of the End
Whether Saddam is alive or dead is not known, but the end is near.
By the afternoon of April 9, 2003, the Iraqi regime had crumbled. U.S. Marines and U.S. Army troops now occupy the center of Baghdad. Iraqi citizens are celebrating in the streets, toppling Saddam statues and singing songs of joy to U.S. President Bush.
The war is not over yet. The city of Tikrit, Saddam's hometown, now falls into the crosshairs of the coalition forces. Saddam and his bloodthirsty regime are fleeing. They must be hunted down one by one, wherever they hide, and returned to face justice.
Even after the war, there remains much to be done. The Iraqi crimes must be documented. American POWs must be rescued and returned. The years of torture and oppression need to be told to the world.
The Iraqi war machine must be destroyed. Stores of chemical and biological weapons must be uncovered, carefully documented and destroyed. Iraqi engineers and weaponeers must tell their stories, free from retribution.
The vast stores of Iraqi weapons must be uncovered, documented and destroyed. The extent of support from Russia, France, Syria and other states must be openly published.
New Russian Missile
For example, recent finds include a cache of newly modified SA-6 Gainful missiles. The missiles clearly were modified by Russian engineers in the factory and then sent to Iraq in violation of the U.N. embargo.
A new Iraq will rise from the ashes of Saddam Hussein. The new Iraqi government should not honor Saddam's contracts with France and Russia. However, the new Iraqi government should publish these deals, so the world can document the corruption of Chirac and Putin.
The Iraqi people do not owe billions to Moscow and Paris for creating a vast war machine. The Iraqi people do not have to honor illegal and corrupt deals cut with Moscow and Paris for billions in oil.
The Iraqi people do not need U.N. diplomats to represent them or to control their purse strings. The Iraqi people do not need U.N. diplomats to take a juicy cut of their economy. Iraq does not need U.N. bureaucrats to institute a new dictatorship.
Many have given their lives to free Iraq. We should never forget their ultimate sacrifice to bring liberty and justice to a nation that has known so much suffering.
"The Iraqi people can see it and taste it. Their day of freedom has arrived," stated White House spokesman Ari Fleischer.
* * * * * * RADIO AND TV SCHEDULE
Charles Smith will be on: The American Freedom Network with NewsMax contributor Dr. James Hirsen on Friday, 4/11/03, at 11 a.m. Eastern time. Show information at http://www.amerifree.com.
Rex Barber would disagree with Smiths' version of events.
In addition, it should be noted that Major John P. Condon, USMC, serving as Fighter Command Operations officer for ComAirSols was the one responsible for much of the planning and plotting of the course for the Army Air Corps mission.
Please tell us...did you wear your pearls in the shower?
This isn't correct. Lamphier was interviewed about the mission and parts of that interview were recently aired on the History Channel. The "killing shot" was made from an extreme angle as the "Betty" bomber carrying Yamamoto flew across Lamphier's flight path.
Lamphier was planning to maneuver into position but chose this moment to tap his machine guns to make sure that they were working. One of the Betty's 2 engines began to burn much to his amazement. The bomber hit the jungle with no survivors.
Bottom line: the "shot" was known to fighter pilots as a "high deflection" shot and was considered to have a very low probability of hitting anything. Lamphier basically admitted that it was a lucky shot.
Nothing series or hugh.
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