Saturday, May 31, 2003

The plot for my new novel!
Peter Dale Scott at The Pacific News Service dishes up an extra large helping of wingnutty goodness with Why Baghdad Fell Without a Fight -- Does Saddam's General Have the Answer?:
One of Saddam Hussein's top generals was not included in the U.S. card deck of 55 most-wanted Iraqis. Now stories are circulating in European, Middle Eastern and other foreign press that he was paid off to ensure the quick fall of Baghdad.

On May 25, the French paper Le Journal du Dimanche, citing an unnamed Iraqi source, claimed that General Maher Sufian al-Tikriti, Saddam's cousin and a Republican Guard commander, made a deal with U.S. troops before leaving Iraq on a U.S. military aircraft. Allegedly the deal had been secured in advance by the CIA, but by prearrangement was implemented only after U.S. troops reached Baghdad's airport on April 4. Sufian was said to have left Iraq, along with a 20-man entourage, on April 8 -- the day before U.S. forces captured Baghdad without resistance.
...
This story has been picked up by newspapers around the world, including the London Times and the Sydney Morning Herald. But the only recent reference to Gen. Sufian in the U.S. press was in early May, when it was reported that his home was now a base where survivors searched for records on the fate of missing loved ones.

Other Arab sources have added details. Reportedly Sufian ordered the Republican Guard out of the city to fight in the countryside, where they were easily picked off. Gen. Sufian may also have betrayed the location of the house where Saddam Hussein met with his family on April 7, and where Saddam may or may not have been killed.
And don't forget the coverup!
On April 8, at the time of the alleged deal, U.S. Marines announced that Gen. Sufian had been shot at a roadblock outside Baghdad. On April 9, Knight Ridder newspapers carried a report from Marine headquarters on how Gen. Sufian met his death in a white Toyota sedan, uniformed and alone except for his chauffeur.
It's a touch worthy of Hitchcock!

But here's the best part (emphasis mine):
The Lebanese newspaper Sawt al-Urouba has alleged that some of the "human shields" who had traveled to Baghdad before the war in the name of protecting civilian targets were in fact U.S. agents who bribed Iraqi generals while in the city.
Here's the one line synopsis: a beautiful Yankee agent disguised as a granola eater convinces a stern Arab general to participate in a dangerous plan to betray a ruthless dictator! And they fall in love of course.

I'm going to be rich, I tell ya!