> Iraqis suffer from contaminated drinking water, inadequate hospitals,power cuts and funding shortage
23 May 2005, 15:51
The shredding machine story was discredited very early after the invasion. As for the source, I cannot recall exactly but it was mainstream media in the UK - probably The Guardian or Independent. I agree with you on several things but the too far fetched for fiction is a bit rich. Don’t you remember the babies thrown out of their incubators during Gulf I? A story fabricated by the Kuwaiti ambassador to the US and then delivered as tearful, eye witness testimony by his own daughter who hadn’t been within three thousand miles of the country for months. The US media and public bought that one as well. I will look back and find the links to the shredding story but eye witness testimony from within Abu Ghraib was absolute about it and pointed out that such a machine would have to be fabricated inside the building as there was no room to take it. The testimony came from Doctors at the hospital who were at pains to point out that the only forms of execution at the prison were hanging (often used) and very occasional shootings. The doctors at that point had nothing to hide and nothing to fear so they may have been expected to turn on Saddam. They also found it quite a surprising story as none of them had ever heard of such a thing before being told about it by western journalists.
If you check photos of the ’mass graves’ you will find an awful lot of military uniform among the dead. And I can assure you, from Government figures (hardly understated as they have a serious interest in demonising Saddam) the current total of bodies recovered is less than 5,000. His sons do seem to have been maniacs but once again all we have is hearsay to go on. I would like to give you the benefit of the doubt but you may have to accept as I do that the truth will only come with the history and we will write that so whatever is said will be filtered through the politics of the time and, what may become a desperate need, to pretend that we actually had a valid reason for invading in the first place. As our politicians couldn’t even tell the truth about the invasion in the first place (See the UK memo for that one, and the lies told to the security council, congress, parliament etc) then I find it hard to accept their subsequent claims. Don’t forget that we invavded Yugoslavia a few years ago because of a supposed ’massacre’. The figures for that rose from three to four thousand to a final "accurate" estimate of 70,000. The actual death toll was subsequently revealed to be 200. So maybe you should take a little more salt whenever trying to assess the words of our leaders.
The shredding machine story was discredited very early after the invasion. As for the source, I cannot recall exactly but it was mainstream media in the UK - probably The Guardian or Independent. I agree with you on several things but the too far fetched for fiction is a bit rich. Don’t you remember the babies thrown out of their incubators during Gulf I? A story fabricated by the Kuwaiti ambassador to the US and then delivered as tearful, eye witness testimony by his own daughter who hadn’t been within three thousand miles of the country for months. The US media and public bought that one as well. I will look back and find the links to the shredding story but eye witness testimony from within Abu Ghraib was absolute about it and pointed out that such a machine would have to be fabricated inside the building as there was no room to take it. The testimony came from Doctors at the hospital who were at pains to point out that the only forms of execution at the prison were hanging (often used) and very occasional shootings. The doctors at that point had nothing to hide and nothing to fear so they may have been expected to turn on Saddam. They also found it quite a surprising story as none of them had ever heard of such a thing before being told about it by western journalists.
If you check photos of the ’mass graves’ you will find an awful lot of military uniform among the dead. And I can assure you, from Government figures (hardly understated as they have a serious interest in demonising Saddam) the current total of bodies recovered is less than 5,000. His sons do seem to have been maniacs but once again all we have is hearsay to go on. I would like to give you the benefit of the doubt but you may have to accept as I do that the truth will only come with the history and we will write that so whatever is said will be filtered through the politics of the time and, what may become a desperate need, to pretend that we actually had a valid reason for invading in the first place. As our politicians couldn’t even tell the truth about the invasion in the first place (See the UK memo for that one, and the lies told to the security council, congress, parliament etc) then I find it hard to accept their subsequent claims. Don’t forget that we invavded Yugoslavia a few years ago because of a supposed ’massacre’. The figures for that rose from three to four thousand to a final "accurate" estimate of 70,000. The actual death toll was subsequently revealed to be 200. So maybe you should take a little more salt whenever trying to assess the words of our leaders.