An interesting claim

The daughter of one of Saddam's Iraqi opponents is making an interesting claim.

Nora al Tamimi, daughter of slain Iraqi opposition activist Taleb al Suhail al Tamimi, said from Beirut in a newspaper interview published Saturday that her father had planned a coup d'etat to overthrow Saddam in 1993, operating from Beirut and Amman.

"Zero hour was set for a certain June day in 1993 to stage the coup when Saddam would have been sponsoring an official event in Baghdad," Nora told the London-based Asharq Al Awsat newspaper in an interview conducted at the family house in Beirut.

"But the Americans, who did not want the coup to succeed possibly because they were certain my father would not go along with their polices, tipped off Saddam about the impending putsch by my father and gave the names of his top aides," Nora said. "All of them died in Saddam's torture chambers."  article

I have no other information to verify the claim. It may not be true. But it sure wouldn't be a surprise if it is.

Update January 3, 2004: I have come across a Noam Chomsky interview that talks about this uprising of generals against Saddam. Here's my post on it.