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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Nadine Carroll who wrote (74192)	2/15/2003 9:03:22 AM
From: E. T.	Respond to of 281500

First Defection from Top Rank of Saddam Regime debka.com Exclusive from DEBKA-Net-Weekly 97 Feb.14 Adib Shaaban, the right hand of Saddam Hussein’s powerful son Uday, has defected. DEBKA-Net-Weekly reports exclusively that this key member of Saddam Hussein’s administration, who was charged with his son’s most sensitive missions, traveled to Jeddah at the beginning of this week, saying he needed to put through some gold transactions ahead of the war. From Jeddah, he flew to Beirut and… disappeared. US intelligence sources report that Shaaban never really went to Beirut. He made his way under cover to Damascus Monday and was picked up by an unmarked plane for an unknown destination. As Uday’s closest aide, he also managed a chain of official publications, including the authoritative Babel, and was in on the Saddam regime’s deepest secrets. Uday commands the secret army known as Saddam’s Fedayeen, the backbone of Baghdad’s defenses and custodian of the weapons of mass destruction that were not smuggled out to Lebanon. Uday is also the chief of the ruling Baath Party’s covert service. Shaaban must therefore be a veritable treasury of Saddam Hussein’s secrets. In American hands, Uday’s chef de bureau would be even more valuable than the proverbial smoking gun.

To: Nadine Carroll who wrote (74192)	2/16/2003 2:00:10 AM
From: Bilow	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Hi Nadine Carroll; Re: "Now, now, Carl. You never said that the Turks would continue to delay. Your exact words were, and I quote, "There's not a snowball's chance in hell the Turks sign up for this"." I did say that there's not a snowball's chance in *HELL* that Turkey will sign up for a US attack on Iraq. I still say it. And the way that Turkey does this is not by saying "no" to the US, but instead by constantly putting off saying yes. For example: Bilow, January 27, 2003 What has gone on in Turkey is consistent with my prediction that we would get no real assistance from them, but instead just delay, delay, delay. That is, there is no reason for Turkey to fully piss off the US by saying "NO" directly. Instead, they will use the usual expedient of saying "sure, but later". #reply-18497343 I'll update the reserves figures later. That I was wrong that the Bush administration would back down before running up the reserves figure is due only to my overestimating their intelligence. The events of this past weekend have convinced more people that Bush will be forced to back down, making the call up of the reserves a political, economic and diplomatic disaster. What Bush should have done was to simply declare a victory back in November and have done with it. Instead, the path he's chosen has been disastrous for the US. The fact is that now it's February 15th, and still (1) no sign of an ultimatum from Bush, and (2) very little sign of allies willing to fight on our side. -- Carl P.S. And by the way, did you notice that those Palestinians that Sharon was going to bring to heel 2 years ago just blew up another Merkava? Some victory.