Soccer Dad

Saddam's threat to the west

I had missed this article, Saddam collected information on dozens of potential targets in Israel.

Saddam Hussein's intelligence service collected information on dozens of sites in Israel, including airports, other transportation centers, as well as scientific and religious centers that were thought to be potential targets for attacks.

Among the sources providing intelligence to Saddam's regime was Force 17, the security force of Yasser Arafat, which planned and carried out from its Ramallah headquarters attacks against Israeli targets.

This information emerged following the release of documents captured during the American invasion in 2003 and made available as part of a West Point program to evaluate the lessons of the war in Iraq.

In addition to the detailed collection of intelligence on potential Israeli targets, the documents also show that Saddam's intelligence was following closely the links between Iran and Hezbollah and the potential that such ties could provide Iran to operate in the territories and in North Africa.

And remember Dr. Rantisi, a head of the "political" arm of Hamas?

Hamas representatives, including Abdel Aziz Rantisi, who was assassinated by the Israel Defense Forces in 2004, contacted Iraqi intelligence and asked to coordinate attacks against American and Israeli targets to delay the American invasion of Iraq in 2003.

Israel wasn't his only target either:

A video recording of a meeting between Saddam and Yasser Arafat on April 19, 1990, showed Saddam threatening to assassinate then president George Bush. "We may not be able to reach Washington, but we could send someone with an explosives belt to Washington," Saddam told Arafat, three months before the invasion of Kuwait.

"We can send people to Washington. A man with an explosives belt could throw himself on Bush's car."

Saddam also told his Palestinian guest that he intended to launch surface-to-surface ballistic missiles against Tel Aviv and that he possessed chemical weapons that "have been successfully employed" against Iran - and he would not hesitate to also use them against Israel.

Remarkably, such revelations are getting very little coverage. I guess it's more important to focus on the effects of the war than on what was possibly prevented.

Crossposted on Yourish.