Saddam Clearance Sale

Take a look through the Bully of Baghdad's back pages here. The Operation Iraqi Freedom Document project is releasing 55,000 boxes worth of the erstwhile Iraqi government's documents, making it possible for every slob in a "Who Farted?" t-shirt to get a full dose of the mother of all document dumps. The project, pushed by House Intelligence Chairman Pete Hoekstra (R-MI), aims to bring the full power of the open source of the fine-grained detail of the distributed intelligence of the blah blah blah, and war supporters are obviously hoping it will provide evidence for Saddam's ongoing WMD program: Mr. Ray Robison is providing regular updates on that front. The New York Times manages to find a fly in the aluminum tube:

"There's no quality control," said Michael Scheuer, a former Central Intelligence Agency specialist on terrorism. "You'll have guys out there with a smattering of Arabic drawing all kinds of crazy conclusions. Rush Limbaugh will cherry-pick from the right, and Al Franken will cherry-pick from the left."

Because that would be so different from the way things are now.

My question: Who gets that Koran written in Saddam's blood?

Comments

[Number 6]

Can't help with the Koran, but I know a guy who has a KISS comic written in their blood.

[Deus ex Machina]

Too bad something like this is unlikely to happen in today's Washington.

[wingnutx]

Saddam couldn't have had a koran written in blood. He was a stric secularist who would never suck up to religious nutjobs.

[SR]

"Saddam couldn't have had a koran written in blood. He was a strict secularist who would never suck up to religious nutjobs."

Is that supposed to be some sort of argument? There's a rather sharp difference between going through the public motions of religion and having "religious nutjobs" as allies. Unless you think John Kerry is secretly in the pocket of the Moral Majority because he goes to church every Sunday and owns a Bible.

[thoreau]

I think it would be kind of cool to have a Koran written in my own blood. I'd want it in really fancy script, of course, hand-drawn by artists. And printed on the skins of my vanquished foes.

If only I were an evil overlord...

[Pro Libertate]

URGENT ALERT: thoreau, under NO CIRCUMSTANCES should you use your own blood to write a Koran. Such blood contains your precious DNA, which could be used to breed a new you to usurp your Evil Overlordship.

[John]

SR,

The Syrians are Bathist secularists too, I guess its just a myth that they are allied with the Mullahs in Iran and fundementalists terrorists in Lebenon. Yeah, the fact that John Kerry goes to church on Sunday and owns a bible doesn't put him in league with Pat Robertson, but John Kerry is not as far as we know an ego-maniacal dictator. There are endless examples of secularists cynically alligning with and using religous fanatics or other fanatics of a seemingly opposite philosophy for their own ends.

The more important thing about this story is the nerve these people have in letting any information out and letting amateurs have access to it rather than the "professionals" at the CIA. These amateurs might make the wrong conclusions from these documents. I mean its not like the CIA has ever been wrong about anything before. Keep these state secrets just that and in the hands of the seasoned, unbiased, unpolitically motivated bureaucrats at State, NSA and CIA where they belong!!

[thoreau]

PL-

Oh, don't worry, I'll bombard the blood with radiation to degrade the DNA before handing it over to the scribes.

[wingnutx]

It is an argument that a secularist can work with, or pretend to be, a religious nut when it suits his purpose.

I have no idea what Kerry really believes, but it's pretty common for US politicians to pretend some level of piety just for show. Doesn't mean they are in anyone's pocket. Going to church, either sincerely or for a photo-op, is a far cry from commissioning a custom book written in your own blood, though. Apples/oranges, imho.

I'd kill for a Jhonen Vasquez comic written in blood.

[joe]

John,

"The Syrians are Bathist secularists too,"

Ah, but they are also from the Shiite-derived Alewite community, a distinct minority in Sunni Syria. That's quite different than Iraq, in which Saddam was a Sunni leader in a majority Shiite country - and one that was right next door to Iran. Not to mention, Iran is a government, not a hunted insurgent group.

The argument was that Saddam would not ally himself with Al Qaeda, not a general statement about all secular regimes and all fundamentalist movements and governments.

But you're right about information dumps. It's good for society, and good for intelligence. Keeping info secret to avoid giving away an ongoing initiative is one thing, but the benefits of having the amateurs argue about it shouldn't be ignored.

[Pro Libertate]

Smart thinking, thoreau. . . .

Unless the radiation simply creates a mutant thoreau clone with super powers. Nah, that couldn't happen.

[John]

Joe,

We know that Saddam grabbed onto the religous mantle after the 1st Gulf War. He started building mosques, put the Koran verse on the Iraqi flag and started playing the Islam card along with his pan Arab message. Do you really think Saddam gave a crap about the Palistinians? Of course not, but he hated Isreal and giving money to suicide bombers family played well in the Arab world. In the same way, his new found faith in Islam played well. We know from the captured Iraqi documents that Iraqi intelligence agents did meet with Bin Laden in 1995.

Of course we do not know if that meeting ever amounted to anything. Reading the intelligence documents of a totalitarian regime is like trying to reconstruct the life of a compulsive liar by reading his mail. The point is that, it is simply not true that Saddam would have never worked with religous extremists. The Saddam Fedyin were foreign Arab religous extremists. Al Zarcarwi was a welcomed guest. Saddam wanted to rule the pan Arab world and was basically crazy. He certainly was not above using religion and terrorism to achieve that end.

[Paul]

Rush Limbaugh will cherry-pick from the right, and Al Franken will cherry-pick from the left."

Aaaannnnddddddd?

[Tim Cavanaugh]

Al Zarcarwi was a welcomed guest.

This is not a rhetorical question, it's a real question: Wasn't Zarqawi operating exclusively in the autonomous regions prior to the invasion?

[Jersey McJones]

So who gets his solid gold buttplugs?

[joe]

Once again, John, you're moving the goalposts. The question is about the Saddam regime working with Bin Ladin's group. At this point, I hope you realize that the question of their working together has been more or less settled. No involvement with September 11. No cooperation with Al Qaeda on any operations. Part of that was Saddam, part of that is Bin Ladin. We know this now.

And there was plenty of reason to conclude as much three years ago.

[Mike H.]

Wasn't Zarqawi operating exclusively in the autonomous regions prior to the invasion?

Answer: Depends if you ask Al or Rush.