12-31-2006, 02:47 AM
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Too lazy to set a custom title
Join Date: Oct 2002
Location: Far far away - as possible
Posts: 14,956
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On hindsight - the perceptions/opinions of Saddam in earlier years are kinda funny....
Quote:
British diplomats who met Saddam Hussein in late 1969 shortly before he came to power assessed him to be "a presentable young man" with whom Britain could do business, newly released documents show.
The embassy officials were highly complimentary about Saddam, then in his early 30s, describing him as "the recognised heir-apparent" to the then Iraqi president, Ahmed Abu Bakr.
"A presentable young man," the assessment said in a dispatch to London dated November 15, 1969. "Initially regarded as a party extremist, but responsibility may mellow him."
Glencairn Balfour-Paul, the then British ambassador, quoted in another document placed on the internet by the US National Security Archive, said Saddam spoke "with great warmth and what certainly seemed sincerity" and had an "engaging smile".
"I should judge him, young as he is, to be a formidable, single-minded and hard-headed member of the Baathist hierarchy, but one with whom, if only we could see more of him, it would be possible to do business."
Mr Balfour-Paul said on Friday that it was immediately clear that Saddam was "a thug" but this was not the kind of language used in diplomatic telegrams back to London.
"He was already very much running things. Ahmed Bakr was just a figurehead by this time. Saddam . . . had his cousin, the other vice-president, assassinated and didn't try to hide it."
Other documents provide more details of Donald Rumsfeld's visit to Baghdad in 1984, intended to keep the US-Iraq relationship close despite Saddam's willingness to ignore terrorism and his use of chemical weapons.
They also include a confidential report on how the American company Bechtel, which has been awarded the largest US aid contract to rebuild Iraq's infrastructure, planned to breach sanctions imposed in 1988 after a chemical attack on the Kurds.
A briefing for Mr Rumsfeld, now US Defence Secretary but then a special ambassador to the Middle East, gives more detail of the approach he took on Iraq's use of chemical weapons against Iran. George Shultz, the then secretary of state, said Mr Rumsfeld should tell Saddam that recent US protests over the use of chemical weapons did not affect US relations with Iraq.
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Apart from that - it's obvious there was a "relationship" with both the US and the UK - and, tho it would never be admitted - a fair chance Saddam was acting on behalf of the CIA for a number of earlier years - tho that is total supposition - but will reasoning.
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XXX TLD's - Another mosquito to swat.
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