Sunday, March 14, 2004

Hussein's government documents

The Dreyfuss Report reveals who has custody of a cache of Saddam's documents.

Now [Kanan] Makiya has scarped up tons of documents about Iraq's past into a INC-controlled archive. Today's New York Times notes:
In the days after Mr. Hussein's government fell in April, [INC] officials took a vast quantity of secret government documents, and the group has kept custody of them, to the dismay of some at the CIA, according to government officials. Defense Department officials said the Pentagon agency had been permitted to review the documents but not to take custody of them.
Those are among the documents that Makiya, on behalf of Ahmad Chalabi, has arrogated to his documentation center. It's potent blackmail material. Among other things, the INC is apparently using it to threaten French, Russian and other foreign officials with selectively exposing their connections to Saddam. More importantly, however, it gives Chalabi a lot of power in Iraq, since, like J. Edgar Hoover and his secret files, he can use those documents to threaten Iraqi rivals or, by suppressing them, persuade such rivals to support him.

The Times notes that the Pentagon is still playing millions of dollars to Chalabi and the INC for "intelligence." But, says the Times, before the CIA can interview any of the INC's so-called experts, it has to ask the Pentagon's permission. ("Mr. Feith, is it ok if Chalabi's people lie to us again?")


I'm going to guess that those documents contain some more info about Rumsfiend's meetings with Saddam than we've ever seen before, at the very least.

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