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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: LindyBill who wrote (19723)	12/14/2003 3:14:33 AM
From: LindyBill	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793623

Here comes another one, just like the other one. How is the Telegraph coming up with these stories when nobody else is? How the Chinese helped Iraq fight the US (Filed: 14/12/2003) Beijing know-how was handed over to Saddam as air strikes began, reveals Con Coughlin. Chinese military advisers played a key role in helping Saddam's air defences withstand coalition air strikes in the months preceding Operation Iraqi Freedom, according to the Iraqi colonel who last week revealed details of Saddam's programme of weapons of mass destruction. Lieutenant-Colonel al-Dabbagh, whose revelations about Saddam's battlefield WMD capability were revealed exclusively last week in the Telegraph, said he worked with a number of Chinese air-defence specialists during 2002 and the early part of this year to devise methods to stop coalition air strikes destroying Iraq's air defences. "They arrived in the spring of 2002," said al-Dabbagh, who commanded an air defence unit in Iraq's Western desert. "They were personally greeted by Saddam and seemed very happy to be in Iraq. A couple of them even grew moustaches and wore keffiyehs (Arab scarves) around their heads so that they would look more like us." Saddam is believed to have made a secret military deal with Beijing, which opposed the Iraq war at the United Nations security council. This was a clear breach of UN sanctions imposed on Iraq at the end of the Gulf War. The deal was struck in late 2001 after allied warplanes, which were then patrolling the no-fly zone in southern Iraq, attacked and destroyed several Iraqi radar installations. "Saddam went absolutely crazy," al-Dabbagh recalled. "He said, 'If we don't do something fast there will be no radar left in Iraq.' " Initially, the Iraqis recruited about a dozen Serb air-defence specialists, who were each paid $100,000 (£57,000) a month to help devise a method to protect Iraq's air defences from attack. But their contract was terminated when their attempts to devise a mobile radar system failed because they could not find a truck large enough to carry the equipment. According to al-Dabbagh, the Chinese were more successful and devised a sophisticated decoy device which forced missiles fired by allied warplanes to hit the wrong targets. "The Chinese device only cost $25, but it was very successful," said al-Dabbagh. "The American pilot would return home thinking he had hit three of our radar units, when in fact all he would have hit were three $25 decoys." Al-Dabbagh, who is now in hiding in Iraq after death threats following last week's revelations, said Saddam was delighted with the device and personally thanked the Chinese technicians, who performed an oriental dance in honour of the tyrant. telegraph.co.uk