Saturday, March 18, 2006

Saddam document haul

In an extraordinary move, or maybe just an admission that they don't have enough Arab-speakers, the Pentagon has put on the net vast quantities of documents captured and gathered in Iraq. Bloggers take this as an direct appeal for help.

There's a slow drip-drip of 'revelation' from these documents. Including (from Investors.com)

Directorate 9, we discover, "is one of the most important directorates in the Mukhabarat. Most of its work is outside Iraq in coordination with other directorates, focusing on operations of sabotage and assassination."

The document also discusses the Mukhabarat's Office 16, set up to train "agents for clandestine operations abroad." The document helpfully adds that "special six-week courses in the use of of terror techniques are provided at a camp in Radwaniyhah."
In one document translated by Omar at Iraq the Model.
Our Afghani source #002 (info on him in paper slip '1') has informed us that Afghani consular Ahmed Dahistani (info on him in paper slip '2') had spoken before him of the:following

1-That Usama Bin Ladin and the Taliban group in Afghanistan are in contact with Iraq and that a group from the Taliban and Usama Bin Ladin's group had conducted a visit to Iraq

2-That America possesses evidence that Iraq and Usama Bin Ladin's group had cooperated to strike targets inside America
Melanie Phillips has referred to this haul of documents and videos before and reported some intriguing snippets, all as yet unconfirmed. See here and here.

Update
Evidently, the section above quoted by Investors.com is "a print-out from the web site of the Federation of American Scientists"
(powerlineblog) accompanied by comments on it by the Mukhabarat, which are still in Arabic.

Care will be needed in dealing with these documents; there are going to be claims and counter-claims flying thick, low and fast and very little verification, at least for some time.

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