Saddam's Summer Reading

A reader passes along a clip from the Baghdad newspaper Azzaman, Iraq's liberal paper of record. That paper recently ran a short item [Arabic link] about Saddam's legal situation. Drawn from comments from a certain Giovanni Di Stefano, who is identified as one of Saddam's lawyers, the story reports that the former dictator has requested a copy of what is supposedly his favorite novel. That book's title is (I'm told) rendered in Arabic as "Kill the Bird That Laughs," and it is identified as the winner of a Pulitzer Prize. In short, the lawyer would like people to think that Saddam is even now being moved by To Kill a Mockingbird.

Comments

[c]

You think Kim Jong Il knew about the 9/11 plot too? I do. And some democratic senators too, but I just can't decide which ones yet.

[mike]

again with the "You LIAR!" vortex.
What ever happened to funny witty comments?

[linguist]

Joe,

Above you mention "68ers". What's a 68er?

[joe]

Leftist hippies. They staged an uprising in Paris in 1968, and term has come to mean New Left.

[Call me snake]

Sorry, joe, The FT reporter clearly delineates the difference between two separate events: 1) The forged docs trumpeted by Mr. Vanity Fair and 2) Three separate intelligence officials independently corroborating the 99-01 meetings with uranium smugglers and several countries, incl. Iraq.

Gino: Check the interviews with Lee Hamilton et al and also the NYT story on the Al Q./Iraq connections. Then please answer this - Someone commits murder: If you then let him stay in your house in a pinch and loan him money, can you reliably say you had nothing to do with his next murder?

c: No, I really don't think N. Kor. had any info on 9/11, because:
1) Al Qaeda didn't meet with NK intel officials through the 90's
2) No WTC '93 bombers fled to NK
3) As far as I know, there's no 1992 memo from NK intelligence listing Osama under "friends and assets."

Besides, Kim was probably deciding on several new pairs of trendsetting eyeglasses to worry about Al Q.

[Fred]

By the way, I think To Kill A Mockingbird is both a crappy book and a crappy movie. Its reputation is beyond me.

[dhex]

prolly cause you have no taste! 🙂

i've never seen the movie, myself. but the book is very good.

[CharlesWT]

"You think Kim Jong Il knew about the 9/11 plot too?"

Perhaps his brother, Min Tal Lee Il, knew...

[joe]

Saddam's always been good at deluding himself. He probably DOES see parallels with Boo Radley.

[dhex]

where did they get lawyers for saddam from?

[joe]

Giovanni Di Stefano is a colorful character. He started out defending 68ers, then stunned everyone by defending Klaus Barbie, and has built a career out of representing other super-criminals.

[Call me snake]

That's funny, but not as funny as the Mooreite notion among many lefties and libertarians that Saddam flicked to CNN on Sept. 11 and that was the first time he'd heard of the plot.

I'm Saddam had no clue of the meetings to buy uranium in Africa (Poor Joe Wilson: damn those multiple FT sources!), the harboring of '93 WTC bombers in Iraq and his intelligence people at Al Q planning/strategy sessions.

He was most likely busy distributing the oil-for-food proceeds to his starving subjects.

[joe]

Multiple FT sources? Ever hear of a feedback loop? One bad source puts a bug in the CIA's ear. Six foreign intelligence services report that "The Americans have learned that..." and poof, you've got seven sources for the intelligence.

[Gino]

Call me snake:

Huh? Saddam knew about 9/11 before the event? Have you given this testimony to the Congressional Committee investigating 9/11? I'd bet they'd like to know.

Gino

[joe]

Ha! Just got it.

[Douglas Fletcher]

But Syria-sly, folks.