The public went crazy when Saddam Hussein was captured. There was a celebratory air that made you think the killing in Iraq was going to stop now that Hussein was in custody. The celebrations and corporate media coverage made you think that Saddam somehow controlled the Iraqi resistance. The capture of Saddam was not treated the same, the world over, but here in the United States the significance and meaning of his capture was as misread as the initial saliva of Pavlov's dogs. In the beginning of the 20th century Nobel Prize winner Ivan Petrovich Pavlov showed how dogs respond in a certain way to a particular stimulus even if the actual treat was not present. Dogs drooled when they saw lab coats although no food was present. The dogs had been conditioned to associate food with the lab coats of those that fed them. Although Pavlov's work was with dogs, today's media propaganda proves that humans are not much different. It's obvious that people can be trained by FOX 5, MSNBC, and other corporate media to salivate for treats that are not present, so Saddam's capture to these audiences meant no more killing. The commentary behind the capture was absent of any analysis as to the history of the relationship between Iraq and The United States and the reasoning behind the invasion.

The reason that U.S. forces were alleged to be invading Iraq was to find "Weapons of Mass Destruction", at least that is what the public was told. Many of the people who read more than they watch TV, knew this was not the truth and had a lot of evidence to prove it. However, the biggest blow to date to the Bush Administration has come from Bush's Former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill, who told "60 Minutes" that Bush began laying the groundwork for an invasion of Iraq just days after the President took office in January 2001 (more than two years before the start of the U.S.-led war that ousted Saddam Hussein). O'neill has the documents to prove all of it, maps diagrams, etc. But the fear peddled by media after the events of September 11th became an easy excuse for Bush's administration to scare people into doing anything he said, although the White House admits Saddam's alleged "Weapons of Mass Destruction"(WMD) have nothing to do with Osama Bin Laden's alleged planning of 9/11. These two men are not allies and don't even like each other because as they say, "the enemy of my enemy, is not necessarily my friend". In the book by former Wall Street Journal reporter Ron Suskind, "The Price of Loyalty," O'Neill charged that Bush entered office in January 2001 intent on invading Iraq and was in search of a way to go about it. This explains why there were so many strong assertions by the pundits on T.V. and never any evidence presented. It explains why Vice President Cheney's "former" company, Halliburton is receiving so many NO-BID contracts and other special perks. Suskind's book mentions how White House insiders say Cheney is running all this like his personal business. Cheney shouldn't even be in the White House because in addition to the election farce, the President and Vice President can't be from the same state. They're both from Texas but "Tricky Dick" moved just before the election, so he could appear to take legal residence in Wyoming right which would allow him to run as VP. By the way Halliburton has the two largest contracts in Iraq, one for $8.6 billion under the Pentagon's Logistics Civil Augmentation Program (LOGCAP) for providing logistical services to the U.S. military, and a second one for $7 billion for rebuilding Iraq's oil infrastructure. Despite these obvious overcharges these no bid contracts (no competition awards) are illegal.

O'Neill revelations are so important because besides being privy to all the insider information through meetings and memo's, he sat on the National Security Council. He told Time, "In the 23 months I was there, I never saw anything that I would characterize as evidence of weapons of mass destruction." He revealed other information that tells you a whole lot about the type of people that we are dealing with in the White House. For example when he tried to warn Vice President Dick Cheney that growing budget deficits -- expected to top $500 billion this fiscal year alone -- posed a threat to the U.S. economy Cheney cut him off, and said "Reagan proved deficits don't matter". Cheney continued: "We won the midterms (congressional elections). This is our due." In other words we can do whatever we want. O'Neill apparently said ok my specialty is not needed and went to Africa with Bono. A month later, Cheney told the Treasury secretary he was fired. The people running the show in Washington have the interest of the "few" in their decision making process not the "many", so I was not surprised to hear O'Neill liken Bush at Cabinet meetings to "a blind man in a room full of deaf people. O'Neill said Bush balked at his more aggressive plan to combat the corporate crime of companies like Enron after a string of accounting scandals because of opposition from "the corporate crowd," a key constituency of his administration and more directly offending the Vice President who was involved in Enron type fiascos himself . At the time the Securities and Exchange Commission was investigating Halliburton to see if the company used misleading accounting tricks to inflate its profits. When Cheney was at the helm of the oil exploration giant, the company changed the way it calculated its profits. Starting in 1998, Halliburton began counting as revenue money it had not yet collected from clients, because the charges were still in dispute - a tactic also used by Enron. The company's current chief says Cheney, as CEO, knew about the change. So its obvious toughening corporate crime laws would hurt Bush biggest supporters.

All of this has a tie in, which is that mainstream reporting is a corporate entity. This affects reporting since these media corporations, control the primary means of communications that people rely on. Therefore most people are left stuck on the surface in trying to understand what is going on even when bombshell truths surface. The result is that important things are all simply jokes or comical. We have Saddam getting a makeover by gay stylus or we have flash videos of Saddam doing rap songs to Eminem lyrics or OutKast lyrics.

The truth is that Saddam was not a threat to America. The people of the United States have been lied to since day one. The intelligence information reported to people is often inaccurate, false or outdated. If you recall the report that the United States and Britain used to justify the invasion of Iraq was over a decade old and was a plagiarized document from a grad student full of unproven assertions. In fact most of the information that we would like to be able to accept as truth should be questioned. The Hussein capture story has an untold component to it. Saddam Hussein was captured by US troops only after he had been taken prisoner by Kurdish forces, drugged, and left for American soldiers to recover him. This was in retaliation for a crime his son Uday had committed. Saddam came into the hands of the Kurdish Patriotic Front after being betrayed to the group by a member of the al-Jabour tribe, whose daughter had been raped by Saddam's son Uday, leading to a blood feud. This was reported by a British newspaper, Sunday Express, and cites a senior British military intelligence officer. The paper cites details of the incident and numerous sources say that Saddam was not captured as a result of any American or British intelligence. Saddam being captured surprised many people and his daughter (Raghd) swears he was drugged, which many thought had to be the case. Due to the picture media painted of Saddam as a suicidal, Islamic extremist. Many ask how could he surrender without a fight especially considering that his 2 sons Uday and Qusai fought for 6 hours against 101 Airborne troops although outnumbered 200 to 4 and surrounded. 

That's because Saddam is not who people think he is. Saddam is a tyrant, a murderer, a greedy despot, and an egomaniac, but he is also a coward not committed to any principles. He couldn't fathom fighting to the death although its obvious that he is better off dead. His sons were at least solders so they died just that once. Each living day Saddam is killed again through dishonor, embarrassment, humiliation and being humbled. Men of his ilk do not realize death is inevitable and nobody escapes this world with their life and material entrapments, thus they will do any thing to stay alive (on a side note I doubt Osama bin Laden will be taken alive even if he is sleep). Although the Invasion of Iraq was unlawful and wrong its damn near impossible to feel sorry for Saddam. The important thing is to keep in mind the history of the events that led up to this and to commit yourself to the facts. The facts are the United States government is responsible for much of Saddam's evil and that's not funny or a joke, even though the truth doesn't fly over the internet like satires do. 

Looking at a brief timeline of the U.S. - Hussein relationship we how close it was until fairly recently:

1979: Hussein seizes power with US approval; moves allegiance from Soviets to USA in Cold War. 

1980: Iraq invades Iran, then the "Unicycle of Evil," with US encouragement and arms. 

1982: Reagan regime removes Saddam's regime from official US list of state sponsors of terrorism. 

1983: Saddam hosts Donald Rumsfeld in Baghdad. Agrees to "go steady" with US corporate suppliers. Donald Rumsfeld visited Saddam Hussein and negotiates with him on behalf of president Ronald Reagan. The friendship lasts more than 8 years during which the U.S. delivered the weapons Saddam needed for his offensive war against Iran, including photos of Iranian troop positions taken by US satellites. Saddam bought raw materials for his biological and chemical weapons and equipment for his laboratories for nuclear research in the USA

1984: US Commerce Department issues license for export of aflatoxin to Iraq useable in biological weapons. 

1986: May 2nd, US laboratories delivered 4 cultures of bacteria to Iraq, including anthrax. 

1988: In march 1988 Saddam used his Chemical weapons against the Kurds in his own country, in that time as US ally. Kurds in Halabja, Iraq, gassed. 

1987-88: US warships destroy Iranian oil platforms in Gulf and break Iranian blockade of Iraq shipping lanes, tipping war advantage back to Saddam

It's no wonder that Bush Sr. and Rumsfeld reject the International Criminal Court and today Bush and Rumsfeld reject all international law to control the production of Atomic, Biological, and Chemical weapons, they are probably not through with these covert dealings. Face the facts our government armed him, funded him and had no problem advocating for him at the time he was actually exterminating people. Now while he is comparatively docile the Bush administration wants the world to believe that he is the most evil man in the universe and that you should sleep with an eye open, while they parade other foreign leaders with equally awful track records in front of the American people as allies. Those who fall for this are naive suckers, but so is Saddam who didn't realize that the Americans he was dealing with are contract killers with an insatiable thirst for oil. The transcript of his meeting on July 25, 1990 in Baghdad with US Ambassador April Glaspie, prior to the first Gulf War, proves he was setup. When Saddam asked Glaspie if the US would object to an attack on Kuwait over the small emirate's theft of Iraqi oil (Kuwait was using slant drilling techniques or drilling at an angle thus reaching into its Iraq's pipelines and reserves) America's Ambassador told him, "We have no opinion.. Secretary [of State James] Baker has directed me to emphasize the instruction ... that Kuwait is not associated with America." So Saddam went ahead thinking everything was ok which led to the 1st war. This time I can't figure out if the U.S. was mad that Saddam started introducing the Euro as the exchange currency to use and did away with the Dollar for his oil trading ,which might have led other OPEC nations to do the same, further weakening the US currency internationally OR if they just got tired of playing these games and decided "yo, we just going to take the oil, why pretend"? Either way .One thing is for sure they bum rushed the oil and Saddam is better off dead and nothing is funny about this stuff but the oligarchy controlling America is laughing all the way to the bank!- Nuff said

Released: January 13th, 2004

The views and opinions expressed herein by the author do not necessarily represent the opinions or position of Playahata.com.