The Null Device

"Brilliant US intelligence work"

According to this article, the Kurds, not the US, captured Saddam Hussein; members of the al-Jabour tribe, one of whose daughters had been raped by Saddam's son Uday, betrayd him to the Kurdish Patriotic Front, who drugged him and left him in the famous "spider hole", which had been sealed to prevent his escape, and called the US to pick him up. In other words, he had no more chance of escaping from the US forces than one of the cage-raised birds Dick Cheney enjoys gunning down.
What is truly interesting is not just the US claim of capturing Saddam Hussein, but the claiming of an elaborate operation that ended successfully (much like the scripting of the rescue of Jessica Lynch). Not only did that elaborate operation not work (if it existed at all), but the Kurds had him trapped in a hole while the US got the media apparatus together for the "dramatic" events.
What is also worrisome, but not unexpected, is the virtual silence of the US and British press. ABC News Online was the only US-based news I found, and it was a copy of the Agence French Press report.

(via jwz)

There are 1 comments on ""Brilliant US intelligence work"":

Posted by: Michael S.
http://beebo.org
Tue Dec 23 18:01:49 2003

Josh Marshall has done a little bit of digging into the story, and thinks there's nothing to it:

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2003_12_21.html#002341

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