NOTE: Especially note the part about his wife's son -- seems like the leaders everywhere have slipped even lower -- even those that were corrupt already. Although, you can;t go any lower than the partial birth abortion, and that's where many of America's leaders are.
The Telegraph - 09/20/98
THE man who masterminded Saddam Hussein's arms-for-oil sanctions-busting has escaped to the West in the most spectacular defection of the dictator's 20-year tyranny.
Sami Salih has provided details of Saddam Hussein's illegal oil smuggling network and how the profits were used to buy arms to prop up his corrupt regime. Salih, who is regarded as the most important defector to emerge from Iraq since Saddam seized power, set up a network of front companies in the Middle East and Europe to handle the trade. Profits from the transactions were used to finance Saddam's regime and the illegal purchase of arms, supplies and equipment for the Iraqi armed forces.
Salih, 38, defected to Britain with his wife and four children earlier this year after he was accused of spying by Saddam and arrested. After being tortured by Saddam's guards, he escaped from prison. He and his family are now in hiding in Belgium. Salih has given a detailed account of his activities to American and British
intelligence officials, who have now taken action to close down Saddam's international smuggling network.
A senior United Nations official in New York said last week: "The information provided by Salih is gold dust. He has given us sufficient information to take effective action against Iraq's various attempts to evade sanctions."
The exhaustive detail provided by Salih will undoubtedly strengthen the determination of British and American diplomats to ensure that United Nations sanctions against Iraq are rigorously enforced. Salih, who spent most of his time working inside Saddam's presidential palace headquarters in Baghdad, has also provided a chilling insight into the corruption and depravity that epitomises the regime's daily routine.
Apart from the institutionalised violence, Salih also claims to have evidence that Saddam's moral degeneracy has reached the point where he recently seduced the son of his latest wife, Samira Shabandar, whom he
married after separating from his first wife, Sajidah, in 1994.
One of the more remarkable aspects of the oil smuggling operation disclosed by Salih is that it involved close co-operation between Iran and Iraq. Officially the two countries are sworn enemies, and fought an eight-year war in the Eighties in which more than one million people died. But the Iranians agreed to help Iraq to avoid international sanctions by shipping oil cargoes through Iranian territorial waters, where they could move unimpeded by the attentions of British and American warships patrolling the Gulf.
In return, the Iranians took a healthy cut of Iraq's black market profits. Iraq is expected to renew its campaign for sanctions to be lifted at the UN General Assembly, which starts in New York tomorrow.
Under the terms of the deal negotiated with the UN Secretary General, Kofi Annan, during last February's crisis, which was prompted by Iraq's refusal to co-operate with UN weapons inspectors, the UN was to consider lifting sanctions in return for Iraq's co-operation with dismantling weapons of mass destruction. Mr Annan is now reported to be furious with Saddam for reneging on the undertakings he gave to avoid military action.
UN weapons inspectors withdrew from Iraq last month, claiming that they were unable to fulfil their mandate because of Iraq's obstruction. The UN retaliated by passing a resolution which suspended sanctions reviews until further notice in an effort to urge Iraq to resume co-operation.
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