Juan Cole: Possible Blackmail-Shredding Of Evidence & The War Crime of the Century

[kpete]

Look at Friday, Sept. 28th post and for the paragraph about the transcripts.

Writing the introduction to the transcripts, Juan Cole delineates to major issues discussed in the conversation: Bush's willingness to invade with or without UN approval and Saddam's offer to go into exile.

I found the second reason most extraordinary:

The second claim that I made was that Bush was aware of, and rejected, an offer by Saddam Hussein to flee Iraq, probably for Saudi Arabia, presuming he could take out with him a billion dollars and some documents on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction programs. Both provisions were intended by Saddam to protect him from later retaliation. The money would buy him protection from extradition, and the documents presumably showed that the Reagan and Bush senior administrations had secretly authorized his chemical and biological weapons programs. With these documents in his possession, it was unlikely that Bush would come after him, since he could ruin the reputation of the Bush family if he did. The destruction of these documents was presumably Bush's goal when he had Rumsfeld order US military personnel not to interfere with the looting and burning of government offices after the fall of Saddam. The looting, which set off the guerrilla war, also functioned as a vast shredding party, destroying incriminating evidence about the complicity of the Bushes and Rumsfeld in Iraq's war crimes.

Saddam purportedly had documents that showed both both Reagan and Bush SR. had secretly authorized the chemical and biological weapons programs. There must have been names, dates, order forms, and smuggling links in these documents.

On that one reason alone, Cole shows us an underlying motive for the invasion of Iraq and the complete destruction of Saddam and what must have been a "blackmail" scheme.

Bush, for no other reason, wanted those records destroyed and the man who was willing to ruin his family's reputation.

http://www.juancole.com/2007/09/bush-aznar-transcript-war-crime-of.html
via:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/9/29/14296/6688