Cisco
September 12, 2001, 5:53am
1
Earlier at work I heard a news report that something similar had happened in Iraq yesterday and that, while the Iraqi government insists that Saddam is fine, we have reason to believe he might be dead. No one else seems to have heard this…am I hearing things? Is Saddam Hussien dead?
Trucido
September 12, 2001, 7:05am
2
Perhaps you’re thinking of Ahmed Shah Massood, the Afghani resistance leader?
jaimest
September 12, 2001, 7:36am
3
*Originally posted by Cisco *
All sorts of information is zooming around now. There are old rumors he is ill, with cancer, but not dead.
Was the “something similar” perhaps an airstrike?
Sept. 10 — Iraq said Monday that eight civilians were killed in a weekend airstrike by U.S. and British warplanes on southern Iraq. The Pentagon gave no word of casualties, although the British defense ministry said that it believed six Iraqi soldiers died in the attack.
THE OFFICIAL Iraqi News Agency said three others were wounded in the strike Sunday night in the al-Salhiya area of Wasit province, 100 miles south of Baghdad.
Witnesses said the civilians “were preparing for prayers when attacked by the savage U.S.-British warplanes,” the news agency said. Property and shops also were destroyed, it said.
The U.S. Central Command in Florida has said its planes attacked surface-to-air missile sites Sunday in southern Iraq in response to Iraqi threats against American and British aircraft patrolling no-fly zones over Iraq.
Or how about this?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/middle_east/newsid_1537000/1537128.stm
Tuesday, 11 September, 2001, 12:12 GMT 13:12 UK
Iraq says it has shot down a US spy plane over the south of the country. The official Iraqi News Agency (INA) said the plane was brought down near the port city of Basra.
Maj. Brett Morris, spokesman for a US-British military task force in the Persian Gulf, told the Associated Press the coalition force had lost an unmanned aircraft on Tuesday similar to a US spy plane lost last month.
INA said the plane was shot down at 1130 local time (0730 GMT) and wreckage from the “highly advanced” plane was being collected.
If confirmed, it will be the second US spy plane shot down in Iraq in the past two weeks.
Iraq said its forces shot down an unmanned Predator plane in the Basra area, 560 kilometres (350 miles) south of Baghdad on 27 August.
The US Defense Department acknowledged losing a plane at that time but did not confirm the circumstances.
Perhaps he is exiting like King Herod. We can always hope.
Well, he can’t be around forever, you know…
As always, Saddam is just fine and denouncing the US as usual. From the Drudge Report :
Baghdad - Iraq’s President Saddam Hussein said Wednesday that the terror attacks in the United States were ``the result of the thorns sown by its leaders in the world’’.
``Notwithstanding the conflicting human feelings about what happened in America yesterday, America is reaping the thorns sown by its rulers in the world,’’ Saddam said in statements distributed by the official Iraqi News Agency.
``Those thorns have not only bloodied the feet and the hearts of many, but also the eyes of people shedding tears on their dead whose souls have been reaped by America,’’ he went on.