[Scutter]

Maybe he was sent to delay the inspectors for a few minutes, giving the Iraqis time needed to hide something.

[Lion's Cub]

Maybe he was sent to delay the inspectors for a few minutes, giving the Iraqis time needed to hide something.

Given the version of the story in #43, your theory makes a lot of sense.

[Cap Huff]

Yes, that's what I was more or less suggesting in post 33. This thing is very suspicious.

[Steve Eisenberg]

Maybe he was sent to delay the inspectors for a few minutes, giving the Iraqis time needed to hide something.

I also agree with this. It's too much of a coincidence that two incidents would happen within a small time unless they were coordinated. The Baathists are too paranoid to realize that they can safely let these inspectors see anything, since the only result will be praise from Blix for Iraqi cooperation combined with minimization of what is found. Of course, the alternative, that the man with the notebook was a legitimate defector turned over to the torturers, is too horrible to contemplate.

International, and even domestic, support, for US/UK invasion of Iraq is already past its peak. It will be very dissapointing if President Bush, Tuesday night, gives Blix more time to be snowed and John Derbyshire more time to be right about our fecklessness.

We do, though, have a smoking gun here. The fact that the inspectors turned over an unarmed defector to the Baathists proves that they do not want to determine the truth, but rather to cover-up for Saddam's defenders.