More Uncensored Middle East Stories: Saddam - Iraq - USA - UK - And More

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This Thursday we'll try keeping things short and sweet.

We'll simply, super-strongly suggest you read Robert Fisk -- if you want the (often unwelcome), raw truth re; Middle East matters. Especially if you live in, and only have access to news in the increasingly, Censored States of America.

That's Robert Fisk shown below by the way.

We're also saying you should, if you're sensible, save, bookmark and/or blogroll this permanent Robert Fisk link.

Please pass it around too. By email, comments on blogs and every other way you can think of.

To unapologetically harp on and hammer home our point, here we go again. Remember Robert's face - remember his name - read his reports - regularly.

Here's a tasty teaser to tempt you.

[Saddam] takes his secrets to the grave.

Our complicity dies with him.

How the West armed Saddam, fed him intelligence on his 'enemies', equipped him for atrocities - and then made sure he wouldn't squeal.

We've shut him up.

The moment Saddam's hooded executioner pulled the lever of the trapdoor in Baghdad yesterday morning, Washington's secrets were safe.

The shameless, outrageous, covert military support which the United States - and Britain - gave to Saddam for more than a decade remains the one terrible story which our presidents and prime ministers do not want the world to remember.

And now Saddam, who knew the full extent of that Western support - given to him while he was perpetrating some of the worst atrocities since the Second World War - is dead.

Gone is the man who personally received the CIA's help in destroying the Iraqi communist party. After Saddam seized power, US intelligence gave his minions the home addresses of communists in Baghdad and other cities in an effort to destroy the Soviet Union's influence in Iraq. Saddam's mukhabarat visited every home, arrested the occupants and their families, and butchered the lot. Public hanging was for plotters; the communists, their wives and children, were given special treatment - extreme torture before execution at Abu Ghraib.

There is growing evidence across the Arab world that Saddam held a series of meetings with senior American officials prior to his invasion of Iran in 1980 - both he and the US administration believed that the Islamic Republic would collapse if Saddam sent his legions across the border - and the Pentagon was instructed to assist Iraq's military machine by providing intelligence on the Iranian order of battle.

One frosty day in 1987, not far from Cologne, I met the German arms dealer who initiated those first direct contacts between Washington and Baghdad - at America's request.

Read the rest of our intrepid Robert's revealing report, right here.


Maybe some measure of this heroic, honest, honourable, none-whore media man is best shown in our final (bottom of blog), photo. Wherein, you can see for yourself a little of what he got for his troubles when reporting from Iraqi in the initial dangerous days of the illegal invasion.

We actually watched (with our own eyes), while he sustained the injuries shown through being stoned by irate Iraqis as he tried to broadcast live for British TV.

In fact, if it hadn't been for the quick thinking and rapid reactions of the rest of the crew, who quickly picked him up and piled him into their vehicle before speeding off 'the hell outta there' -- it's a safe bet he would not have survived.

But here's the best bit.

A mile or so down the road he insisted they stop. Then calmly, though still bleeding, bruised and quite clearly seriously shaken, he climbed out of the car and bravely began another piece to camera.

And do you know what one of things he said was?

That he didn't blame his attackers at all. That he would probably have felt and acted exactly the same way had he been in their shoes.

What a media-mountain-of-man Mr Fisk is, eh?

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