Another Lie Coming Undone?
"We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do."--An unnamed aide to George W. Bush, on the "reality-based community," in an interview with Ron Suskind for an October 11, 2004 article in the New York Times Magazine.
We've all come to accept as fact that Saddam Hussein was captured on December 13th, 2003. As the story goes, he was found hiding in a spider hole and gave up no resistance. Here is a story from December 14th in which Rumsfeld basically called Saddam a coward.
Now there is this story posted on Michael Moore's website in which a marine claims that the story was fabricated. Here is part of the story (originally from UPI):
"Ex-Sgt. Nadim Abou Rabeh, of Lebanese descent, was quoted in the Saudi daily al-Medina Wednesday as saying Saddam was actually captured Friday, Dec. 12, 2003, and not the day after, as announced by the U.S. Army.
"I was among the 20-man unit, including eight of Arab descent, who searched for Saddam for three days in the area of Dour near Tikrit, and we found him in a modest home in a small village and not in a hole as announced," Abou Rabeh said.
"We captured him after fierce resistance during which a Marine of Sudanese origin was killed," he said."
So, if we are to believe this marine's story, then Saddam was actually captured after being found at a house--not in a hole in the ground--on December 12th, after defending himself a fierce firefight. I remember thinking at the time that he was probably caught long before they announced his capture. I thought it possible that they then came up with a story which conveniently made Saddam look like a coward, and they announced his capture at a time that was politically advantageous for the Bush regime. I think I may know the reason for the timing.
I don't think I've heard anyone else mention this in relation to the capture of Saddam Hussein, so if you mention this to anyone, please give me credit for noticing. As reported in the New York Times, on December 10, 2003, the story broke that Halliburton was over-charging the United States for fuel it was importing from Kuwait. Later reports showed that Halliburton overcharged the US government (and the American taxpayers) by at least $61 millon. With the war going slowly and the violence continuing, people's attention was suddenly becoming fixed on Dick Cheney's old company, which has made billions of dollars off the war in Iraq. Halliburton was about to go down hard.
All of a sudden, Saddam was captured. Everyone forgot about Halliburton, and on December 30, 2003, the Pentagon quietly announced that it would no longer purchase fuel from Halliburton. (See this story from the Boston Globe.) Bush's approval ratings soared, and all of a sudden people began to feel that the war in Iraq might have been worth it, because something good finally happened. The whole issue of the $61 million just sort of disappeared.
Maybe I'm wrong, or paranoid, but this was what I thought at the time. That's why I remember the Halliburton scandal, which turned into a non-scandal. The way Rumsfeld and the Bush junta were just hammering away at how he was caught in a hole in the ground, and gave up without resistance made me skeptical. I didn't think he was caught the day before, as this marine indicated in this new story, but rather I thought they were holding Saddam for a long time prior to that, and the Halliburton fuel scandal was the reason for announcing his capture.
Perhaps those soldiers did find him in a hole in the ground, after he had been drugged up and stashed there by US authorities. That way, the Bush regime could control the story, and thus how history would remember his capture. If they wanted to take out Hussein, it wasn't enough to just capture him. They had to capture and humiliate him. Hussein encouraged his people to fight to the death, so if he was unwilling to fight to the death, it would look all the worse for him. Of course, I am just speculating here.
Will the mainstream media report the claims of this marine? Or will they sit by and allow the Bush cartel to write the history of the capture of Saddam Hussein? I suspect that if they report it at all, they won't take it seriously.
posted by Skrambled Egghead Reborn @ 3:07 PM
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