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| Iraq | ||
| Baghdad coup attempt duped MI6 | ||
| 2004-02-08 | ||
| The source is a rather dubious one given their track record, but what the hell? British intelligence took its eyes off Saddam Hussein’s weapons programmes because it had been duped into believing a military coup would leave Sunni Muslims in power in Iraq. Sources in the country say what they missed was a push to convert chemical and biological organisms into dry agents that could be hidden until pressure on the regime was lifted. ’From the second half of 2000, the focus of the British was not on finding weapons,’ says a member of Iraq’s Governing Council. ’They wanted to avoid war by making a coup. M16 went out of their way to make a coup.’ Once-exiled leaders now back in Baghdad say M16 and the CIA were led to believe that the head of the Mukhabarat, the most powerful of Iraq’s three intelligence agencies, would lead a coup against Saddam that would safeguard Sunni power and keep Iraq’s Shia majority on the political sidelines. The link men were two Lebanese from the Beirut suburb of Haret Hreik - Issam abu Darwish and Imad el Hajj. ’Abu Darwish and El Hajj went to Baghdad to contact and turn the head of the Mukhabarat, Tahir Jalil al Habbush,’ says one source. ’They told M16 and the CIA they made contact with Habbush. M16 thought they could penetrate Saddam Hussein’s intelligence at the highest level. They were stupid on Iraq.’ That’s quite interesting because it’s Habbush whose name keeps on popping up in relation to such things as destroying WMDs in 2000, the alleged letter to Saddam Hussein referencing Mohammed Atta, and the faux peace deal before the war. From the sounds of this, it looks as though that peace deal was nothing more than El Hajj (who also runs guns in Liberia, but al-Guardian won’t mention that) and Habbush acting on their own accord than any kind of concerted effort on Saddam Hussein’s part to avoid war. Which, incidentally, squares perfectly with Tariq Aziz’s characterization of Saddam as being someone who had fallen victim to his own megalomania and was convinced that France and Russia would keep the US from hurting him. Habbush was also trained by the Soviet Bloc and there were rumors that Russia was trying for a coup against Sammy before the war, so one might want to factor that into this whole mess. Days before American and British forces invaded Iraq, as Habbush remained loyal to the regime, El Hajj brokered an eleventh-hour attempt by Saddam to avert war without stepping down. Washington rejected the overture. Habbush, a member of Saddam’s Tikriti clan and sixteenth in the United States’s pack of 55 most wanted Baathists, is still at large. Abu Darwish’s son, Mohammed, now enjoys a lucrative contract as head of security at Baghdad airport.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, however, one source says the expulsion of UN weapons inspectors in December 1998, and the establishment of a new inspection regime a year later, prompted feverish efforts to make and store VX salt and powdered anthrax - forms that are much safer to keep and easier to hide. ’Saddam was trying to dry anthrax and aerosolise it for delivery as a terrorist weapon,’ he says, citing scientists who were involved in weapons programmes after UN inspectors were expelled in 1998. ’There were plans to disseminate it from crop-dusters and from canisters placed on top of high buildings in an American city.’ After 9/11, he adds: ’Saddam hid everything in anticipation of being hit.’ Western experts doubt that Iraq succeeded in weaponising VX salt. ’The chemistry for VX is incredibly difficult,’ says Ron Manley, a British inspector. ’Transferring it to a weapon and making it would be very difficult. But I can quite believe Iraq would have tried it because that’s their nature. It was a "suck it and see" culture.’ But experts say Saddam’s reported attempts to weaponise powdered anthrax confirm existing concerns. ’In 2002, 25 metric tons of aerosil were ordered for, allegedly, the Samarra Drug Industries - far in excess to what SDI could use,’ says Richard Spertzel, head of Unscom’s biological weapons section from 1994-99. ’SDI was involved in CW and BW activities in the 1980s. Aerosil is used by the pharmaceutical industry for inhalant medication, but can also be used in powdered BW products and in "dusty" chemical agents that will penetrate many protective suits. Where is it now?’ | ||
| Posted by:Dan Darling |
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| Posted by: Dan 2004-2-8 12:05:23 PM |
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| Posted by: phil_b 2004-2-8 3:09:38 AM |
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| Posted by: Anonymous2U 2004-2-8 2:38:36 AM |