S Freedom Fries Forgeries

HABBUSH’S FREEDOM FRIES FORGERIES In his description of how Tahir Jalil Habbush Al-Tikriti negotiated protection from the United States, Ron Suskind writes, Bush, Cheney, and top aides to the vice president wanted Habbush, in essence, to earn his passage. The United States was working furiously on "the case." It needed damning disclosures, not the Iraqi intelligence chief–who was given the code name "George"–saying there were no WMD. Suskind doesn’t describe how, in spite of the fact that he insisted Iraq didn’t have WMD, Habbush still managed to convince the US to take him to Jordan and install him with $5 million in hush money. Suskind notes–but does not explain–that Habbush got out of Iraq early, close to the start of the war. Habbush was ready. He slipped out of Baghdad with the help of U.S. intelligence and into Amman, Jordan, where he’d had his meetings with Shipster. It is instructive, then, to look at the two other Habbush letters sent during the early war period. First, there’s the April 24, 2003 letter designed to frame British (then) Labour MP George Galloway as having been bought off with money from Saddam’s oil sales (h/t for all of these articles to a friend). Saddam Hussein’s former head of protocol said yesterday that the document found by The Daily Telegraph saying that George Galloway received substantial payments from the Iraqi regime was "100 per cent genuine". Haitham Rashid Wihaib, who fled to Britain with his family eight years ago after death threats, said he had no doubt that the handwritten confidential memorandum addressed to the dictator’s office apparently detailing how the Labour MP benefited from Iraq’s oil sales was authentic. Sitting in a cafe in central London, a world away from Saddam’s palace where he spent 13 years arranging the dictator’s daily schedule, he carefully studied the letter discovered in the looted foreign ministry in Baghdad. As Mr Galloway continued to denounce the letter as a forgery, Mr Wihaib said he recognised the "clear and distinctive" handwriting as that of Tahir Jalil Habbush Al-Tikriti, head of the Iraqi intelligence service, who is number 14 – the jack of diamonds – on America’s "most wanted" list. The letter would have been intended to smear Galloway for his efforts to forestall the war–and his campaign to show how unfairly Iraq was treated under sanctions. Then there’s the April 27, 2003 letter that alleged France undermined an Iraqi human rights meeting held in Paris. France colluded with the Iraqi secret service to undermine a Paris conference held by the prominent human rights group Indict, according to documents found in the foreign ministry in Baghdad.l Various documents state that the Iraqis believed the French were doing their utmost to prevent the meeting from going ahead. Ann Clwyd, the Labour MP who chairs Indict, said last night that she would be demanding an apology from the French government for its behaviour, which she described as "atrocious". The files, retrieved from the looted and burned foreign ministry by The Telegraph last week, detail the warmth and strength of Iraqi-French ties. [snip] Perhaps the most damning document is from the Iraqi intelligence service, Iris. The service, known as the Mukhabarat in Iraq, operated as the domestic secret police and as an external intelligence agency. Its role abroad was to collect intelligence, murder opponents and maintain relations with friendly groups. The document, dated March 28, 2000, is from the head of Iris to Saddam’s office. At the time the organisation was run by Tahir Jalil al-Habbush, number 14 on America’s wanted list. The letter appears to be written by a different hand from one revealed last week purporting to record that George Galloway benefited from contracts under the oil for food programme. But it carries the same signature. It states that "one of our sources" met the "deputy spokesman" of the French foreign ministry, "with whom he has good relations". It claims that the spokesman from the justice and interior ministries had sought to find a legal way of preventing the Indict meeting. Both letters–like the later letter described by Suskind–"found" by a reporter from the Conrad Black-owned Telegraph, both letters smearing vocal opponents to the war. (There’s also this April 20, 2003 article, alleging cooperation between Russia and Iraq. Though not based on a letter directly attributed to Habbush, it appears to be based on that set of documents dealt to the Telegraph.) These nasty, petty war- mongers–the first thing they wanted to do, apparently, is smear all those who had tried to prevent their pointless war. We could just call these the "Freedom Fry Forgeries." Suskind never explains how, after insisting that Iraq had no WMDs, Habbush was nevertheless spirited out of the country to safety early in the war. But from the looks of these articles, it appears he "earned his passage" by smearing everyone who had (like him) tried to prevent the war. (Here’s eriposte on this as well.).

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