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June 10, 2004
I don't recall very much killing of anyone, the official said
I'm not sure how to blog this one.
In the early nineties, "car bombs and other explosive devices" were smuggled into Iraq "under the direction of the C.I.A." -- channelled through our current hand-picked prime minister Iyad Allawi's group, the Iraqi National Accord. And that was of so little significance that we aren't really sure when it all went down:
No public records of the bombing campaign exist, and the former officials said their recollections were in many cases sketchy, and in some cases contradictory. They could not even recall exactly when it occurred, though the interviews made it clear it was between 1992 and 1995.
The Iraqi government at the time had reported that one had exploded in a movie theater, killing many, but who knows -- because "the United States had no significant intelligence sources in Iraq then." We just sent in the bombs. No official confirmation, no deaths that count.
One former Central Intelligence Agency officer who was based in the region, Robert Baer, recalled that a bombing during that period "blew up a school bus; schoolchildren were killed." Mr. Baer, a critic of the Iraq war, said he did not recall which resistance group might have set off that bomb.
Who knows, right? One bombs here, one school bus there, a car here, an alleged wedding party there; it gets very confusing. We weren't serious anyway:
The bombing and sabotage campaign, the former senior intelligence official said, "was a test more than anything else, to demonstrate capability."
I'm still thinking about that sentence. Demonstrate capability for what?
We weren't even good paymasters it seems:
In 1996, Amneh al-Khadami, who described himself as the chief bomb maker for the Iraqi National Accord and as being based in Sulaimaniya, in northern Iraq, recorded a videotape in which he talked of the bombing campaign and complained that he was being shortchanged money and supplies. Two former intelligence officers confirmed the existence of the videotape. Mr. Khadami said that "we blew up a car, and we were supposed to get $2,000" but got only $1,000, according to an account in the British newspaper The Independent in 1997. The newspaper had obtained a copy of the tape.
That's right, Mr. Khadami. This is American taxpayer money you're talking about. We aren't about to squander it to your profiteering.
Posted by zeynep at June 10, 2004 03:05 AM
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Comments
This article is very interesting, because it introduces into "official" history something I've been wondering about for a while. That said there are some flaws. Milan Rai considers the INA's attacks in Baghdad in 'War Plan Iraq' and concludes that they may have killed as many as 100 people. Additionally he recounts a campaign waged against the INC by the INA, involving planned assasinations of Ahmed Chalabi and the bombing of the INC headquarters in Salahuddin, Iraqi Kurdistan.
What hope for peace, stability, democracy, human rights and self-determination in a country with the leader and co-founder of the group responsible for all the above as PM?
Posted by: Disillusioned kid at June 10, 2004 10:03 AM