If you were going to blackmail to protect yourself from someone who you knew might kill you, you'd turn the incriminating evidence over to someone who could 'execute'(sic) on execution, so to speak.
That hasn't happened. It's still within a conceivable time-frame though. Leigh On 1/18/07, Peter Hollings <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Well, if you read an earlier WMR posting, you'll find that Saddam had a feeler out to western journalists to whom he was offering a package of evidence implicating the US government (e.g., supplying poison gas, etc.) in the crimes that were coming to trial -- trials that were aborted by his hanging. The problem, according to WMR, was that any journalist traveling with these materials on the way out of Iraq would have been a very prominent target (for US forces). ". . . would Saddam be the only one privy to this information?" I think the issue is not so much the existence of this information -- after all we have all seen the pictures of Rumsfeld with Saddam and I think it was Byrd or Leahey who had the shipping manifests for the pathogens introduced on the Senate floor. I think the salient issue, given Saddam's demonstrated ability to get on the front pages, is that the introduction of evidence incriminating Bush I, etc., during Saddam's trial for the same crimes would have been very embarrassing and the trials themselves would be shown to be hypocritical. Hanging Saddam prevented this process and the urgency of this was emphasized in that there was a 30-day deadline for the hanging as a provision in his sentence. It was rigged, and, although Bush blames the Iraqi government for this, it seems the primary beneficiary of the way it was rigged was himself and the USG. Peter Hollings -----Original Message----- From: PEN-L list [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Rui Correia Sent: Wednesday, January 17, 2007 5:55 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [PEN-L] Why did Saddam become expendable? Very good and plausible - but would Saddam be the only one privy to this information? Surely some of Saddam's closest would also be aware of this information - or have all of them been eliminated since the 52-card pack marked heads went public? And yes, surely Saddam would have enough means to ferret the information out of Iraq!!!! Peter Hollings Wayne Madsden has the best answer I've seen to date: "January 15, 2007 -- WMR previously reported that the Bush regime wanted Saddam Hussein hanged quickly before he could testify about his knowledge about arms deals, including weapons of mass destruction transfers, agreed to with the Reagan-Bush I administrations.
