wez

Wasn't it also slick how he tried to insinuate I was contradicting myself and pin me down to 2 choices that aren't necessary? Like we need to be there (with our money).. How clever.. Thank you, sweetheart.

No, asslicking is not sticking up for someone. You know better.. Nice try again... Although, blindly "sticking up for someone" as you accuse the target of being the perp and claiming they are doing what your asslickee is doing because you think they can help you in your personal vendetta, would be construed as asslicking.. Like you with certain folks around the www ... Hahahahahaha Remember me sticking up for Sixes? A post certainly got him reinstated.. And DM? Addressed that one in Dr. eddo's fixit shop. Hahahahahaha

Over Now Alice in Chains Good night... Yeah, its over now, but I can breathe somehow When its all worn out, Id rather go without You know its been on my mind Could you stand right there Look me straight in the eye and say That its over now We pay our debt sometime Well its over now, yet I can see somehow When its all gone wrong, its hard to be so strong You know its been on my mind Could you stand right there Look me straight in the eye and say That its over now We pay our debt sometime Yeah, we pay our debt sometime We pay our debt sometime Yeah, we pay our debt sometime Guess its over now, I seem alive somehow When its out of sight, just wait and do your time You know its been on my mind Could I stand right here Look myself in the eye and say That its over now We pay our debt sometime Yeah, we pay our debt sometime We pay our debt sometime Yeah, we pay our debt sometime [ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Krr2CnFBdfw]YouTube - Alice In Chains-Over Now[/ame] R.I.P. Layne wtf? Those last two vids worked at youtube.. anyone can watch them there if they like I'm sure.

Get Born Again Alice in Chains Sad suffering I knew you when Fairwell thee friend of mine I try not to think I merely blink Hope to wish away the lies... I... Can you protect Me when Im wrecked Ill pretend youre still alive I choose the day One death and grey, Thick fog, I hide and smile Clear all your sins Get born again Just repeat a couple lies Lies... yeah Sad suffering..... Get born again.... [ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KTtVg13rtIs]YouTube - Alice In Chains-Get Born Again[/ame] R.I.P. Layne

I see inflation (of who knows of what) just jumped by the highest it has in the last 17 years. When I turn on the news, all I see is talk of the real estate bust and impending financial doom, except on CNBC where everyone claims there is no recession and nothing to worry about. What a blast... Hahahahahaha... All I can do is laugh. People are funny... specially when it comes to money. We should all just crawl into a hole with a gun it seems. Unreal.. I laughed my ass of yesterday morn on CNBC, the older guy thats on, was interviewing a guest and it went something like this.. Guy.. This is so and so of so and so.. Guy.. "Are we in a recession"? Guest.. "No". Guy "Are we at risk of recession"? Guest.. "No". Guy.. "Thanks for coming in". Hahahahahahaha... you could hear his co - host, the lady with the dark hair, bust out laughing.. It was hilarious. He then talked to him a bit more after that..

No doubt, gotta love his fire.. I hope he takes the bowl.. I see Moss has just had a restraining order put on him by a woman in FL.. Good gravey.. here we go again.

Bleed the freak Alice in Chains My cup runnet over Like blood from a stone Chorus These stand for me Name your God and bleed the freak I like to see How you all would bleed for me When the pig runs slower Let the arrow fly When the sin lies bolder Ill pluck out thine eye Chorus If you scorn my lover Satan got your thigh If you steal in hunger I will kick you when you try Chorus [ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xb90YSIjWcQ]YouTube - Alice in Chains Bleed the Freak Live Video[/ame] Cool.. live performance. Can't wait for it to load.. R.I.P. Layne

What you are Audioslave And when you wanted me I came to you And when you wanted someone else I withdrew And when you asked for light I set myself on fire And if I go away I know You'll find another slave Cause now I'm free from what you want Now I'm free from what you need Now I'm free from what you are And when you wanted blood I cut my veins And when you wanted love I bled myself again Now that I've had my fill of you I'll give you up forever And here I go far away I know you'll find another slave Cause now I'm free from what you want Now I'm free from what you need Now I'm free from what you are Then the vision came to me When you came along I gave you everything But then you wanted more [ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xgr82Y6Imfk&feature=related]YouTube - Audioslave- What you are[/ame]

Source: Alfred Mendes, Excerpt from Blood for Oil, Spectr@zine. <http://www.spectrezine.org/war/Mendes.htm> The Ba'athist coup, resulted in the return to Iraq of young fellow-Ba'athist Saddam Hussein, who had fled to Egypt after his earlier abortive attempt to assassinate Qasim. Saddam was immediately assigned to head the Al-Jihaz al-Khas, the clandestine Ba'athist Intelligence organisation. As such, he was soon involved in the killing of some 5,000 communists. Saddam's rise to power had, ironically, begun on the back of a CIA-engineered coup! Source: From Practical History, London, May 2000. <http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/Senate/7672/iraq.html> 1963: Qasim's government is overthrown in a coup bringing the Arab nationalist Ba'ath party to power. They favour the joining together of Iraq, Egypt and Syria in one Arab nation. In the same year, the Ba'ath also come to power in Syria, although the Syrian and Iraqi parties subsequently split. The Ba'ath strengthen links with the U.S. During the coup, demonstrators are mown down by tanks, initiating a period of ruthless persecution. Up to 10,000 people are imprisoned, many are tortured. The CIA supply intelligence to the Ba'athists on communists and radicals to be rounded up. In addition to the 149 officially executed, about 5,000 are killed in the terror, many buried alive in mass graves. The new government continues the war on the Kurds, bombarding them with tanks, artillery and from the air, and bulldozing villages. Source: Muslimedia: August 16-31, 1997 <http://www.muslimedia.com/archives/features98/saddam.htm> Iraqis have always suspected that the 1963 military coup that set Saddam Husain on the road to absolute power had been masterminded by the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). New evidence just published reveals that the agency not only engineered the putsch but also supplied the list of people to be eliminated once power was secured--a monstrous stratagem that led to the decimation of Iraq's professional class. The overthrow of president Abdul Karim Kassim on February 8, 1963 was not, of course, the first intervention in the region by the agency, but it was the bloodiest--far bloodier than the coup it orchestrated in 1953 to restore the shah of Iran to power. Just how gory, and how deep the CIA's involvement in it, is demonstrated in a new book by Said Aburish, a writer on Arab political affairs. The book, A Brutal Friendship: The West and the Arab Elite (1997), sets out the details not only of how the CIA closely controlled the planning stages but also how it played a central role in the subsequent purge of suspected leftists after the coup. The author reckons that 5,000 were killed, giving the names of 600 of them--including many doctors, lawyers, teachers and professors who formed Iraq's educated elite. The massacre was carried out on the basis of death lists provided by the CIA. The lists were compiled in CIA stations throughout the Middle East with the assistance of Iraqi exiles like Saddam, who was based in Egypt. An Egyptian intelligence officer, who obtained a good deal of his information from Saddam, helped the Cairo CIA station draw up its list. According to Aburish, however, the American agent who produced the longest list was William McHale, who operated under the cover of a news correspondent for the Beirut bureau of Time magazine. The butchery began as soon as the lists reached Baghdad. No-one was spared. Even pregnant women and elderly men were killed. Some were tortured in front of their children. According to the author, Saddam who 'had rushed back to Iraq from exile in Cairo to join the victors, was personally involved in the torture of leftists in the separate detention centres for fellaheen [peasants] and the Muthaqafeen or educated classes.' King Hussain of Jordan, who maintained close links with the CIA, says the death lists were relayed by radio to Baghdad from Kuwait, the foreign base for the Iraqi coup. According to him, a secret radio broadcast was made from Kuwait on the day of the coup, February 8, 'that relayed to those carrying out the coup the names and addresses of communists there, so they could be seized and executed.' The CIA's royal collaborator also gives an insight into how closely the Ba'athist party and American intelligence operators worked together during the planning stages. 'Many meetings were held between the Ba'ath party and American intelligence--the most critical ones in Kuwait,' he says. At the time the Ba'ath party was a small nationalist movement with only 850 members. But the CIA decided to use it because of its close relations with the army. One of its members tried to assassinate Kassim as early as 1959. Saddam, then 22, was wounded in the leg, later fleeing the country. According to Aburish, the Ba'ath party leaders--in return for CIA support--agreed to 'undertake a cleansing programme to get rid of the communists and their leftist allies.' Hani Fkaiki, a Ba'ath party leader, says that the party's contact man who orchestrated the coup was William Lakeland, the US assistant military attache in Baghdad. One of the coup leaders, colonel Saleh Mahdi Ammash, former Iraqi assistant military attache in Washington, was in fact arrested for being in touch with Lakeland in Baghdad. His arrest caused the conspirators to move earlier than they had planned. Aburish's book shows that the Ba'ath leaders did not deny plotting with the CIA ro overthrow Kassim. When Syrian Ba'ath party officials demanded to know why they were in cahoots with the US agency, the Iraqis tried to justify it in terms of ideology comparing their collusion to 'Lenin arriving in a German train to carry out his revolution.' Ali Saleh, the minister of interior of the regime which had replaced Kassim, said: 'We came to power on a CIA train.' It should not come as a surprise that the Americans were so eager to overthrow Kassim or so willing to cause such a blood bath to achieve their objective. At the height of the cold war, they were causing similar mayhem in Latin America and Indo-China overthrowing any leaders that dared show the slighest degree of independence. Kassim was a prime target for US aggression and arrogance. After taking power in 1958, he took Iraq out of the Baghdad Pact, the US-backed anti-Soviet alliance in the Middle East, and in 1961 he dared nationalise part of the concession of the British-controlled Iraq Petroleum company and resurrected a long-standing Iraqi claim to Kuwait ( the regime which succeeded him immediately dropped the claim to Kuwait). But the cold war does not by itself explain Uncle Sam's propensity to violence. When president George Bush bombed Iraq to smithereens, killing thousands of civilians, the cold war was over. Clinton cannot cite the cold war for insisting that the brutal regime of sanctions imposed on the country should stay. In fact the brutal, blood-stained nature of Uncle Sam goes back all the way to the so-called 'Founding Fathers,' who made no attempt to conceal it. As long ago as 1818, John Quincy Adams hailed the 'salutary efficacy' of terror in dealing with 'mingled hordes of lawless Indians and negroes.' He was defending Andrew Jackson's frenzied operations in Florida which virtually wiped out the indigenous population and left the Spanish province under US control. Thomas Jefferson and his colleagues were not above professing to be impressed by the wisdom of his words. Source: Kryss Katsiavriades and Talaat Qureshi, The Acts of the Democracies: 1960 to 1964 <http://www.krysstal.com/democracy_1960to1964.html> Kassem had helped found the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) in an attempt to curtail Western control of Arab oil. He had been planning to nationalise the Iraq Petroleum Company in which the USA had an interest. Iraq had also disapproved when Kuwait had been given independence by the UK with a pro-west emir (king) and oil concessions to Western companies. A few days before the coup, the French newspaper La Monde had reported that Kassem had been warned by the USA government to change his country's economic policies or face sanctions. British government papers later declassified would indicate that the coup was backed by the USA and UK. The new government promises not to nationalise American oil interests and renounces its claim to Kuwait. The USA recognises and praises the new government Everybody seems to see things differently. History depends on who's telling it I figure. Hard to know what to believe... Regime Change: How the CIA put Saddam's Party in Power

Continued.. In early 1963, Saddam had more important things to worry about than his outstanding bill at the Andiana Cafe. On February 8, a military coup in Baghdad, in which the Baath Party played a leading role, overthrew Qassim. Support for the conspirators was limited. In the first hours of fighting, they had only nine tanks under their control. The Baath Party had just 850 active members. But Qassim ignored warnings about the impending coup. What tipped the balance against him was the involvement of the United States. He had taken Iraq out of the anti-Soviet Baghdad Pact. In 1961, he threatened to occupy Kuwait and nationalized part of the Iraq Petroleum Company (IPC), the foreign oil consortium that exploited Iraq's oil. In retrospect, it was the ClAs favorite coup. We really had the ts crossed on what was happening, James Critchfield, then head of the CIA in the Middle East, told us. We regarded it as a great victory. Iraqi participants later confirmed American involvement. We came to power on a CIA train, admitted Ali Saleh Sa'adi, the Baath Party secretary general who was about to institute an unprecedented reign of terror. CIA assistance reportedly included coordination of the coup plotters from the agency's station inside the U.S. embassy in Baghdad as well as a clandestine radio station in Kuwait and solicitation of advice from around the Middle East on who on the left should be eliminated once the coup was successful. To the end, Qassim retained his popularity in the streets of Baghdad. After his execution, his sup- porters refused to believe he was dead until the coup leaders showed pictures of his bullet-riddled body on TV and in the newspapers.

Regime Change: How the CIA put Saddam's Party in Power From Richard Sanders, 24 October 2002 Source: Andrew and Patrick burn, excerpt from Out of the Ashes, The Resurrection of Saddam Hussein, 2000. Cited by Tim Buckley <http://www.casi.org.uk/discuss/2000/msg01267.html> With the death of former CIA director Richard Helms, the corporate media is offering a rare glimpse into the CIA's use of political assassinations. Unfortunately, however, the coverage is highly-sanitized. It covers up much more than it reveals. Contrary to what the corporate media suggests, assassination is not a clean, surgical method of removing very specific political enemies. It is only one small element in a larger cluster of crimes used by the CIA in executing a regime change. The reality is that the CIA's use of assassination to exterminate political leaders has historically been closely linked to many other political crimes that are, arguably, even worse. For example, when planning, coordinating, arming, training and financing repressive military coups, as the CIA has done so many times, their henchmen are wont to carry out mass arrests, mass torture and mass murder. It's a nasty business. As Kissinger once said about the CIA's betrayal of Iraqi Kurds, covert action should not be confused with missionary work. Although 32 of the 98 recent stories on Richard Helms (found using a google media search) mention the term assassination, not one of these articles mentions any of the following terms that are equally relevant to CIA operations: torture, murder, arrest. Only 4 of the 98 recent stories on Helms mention the term coup. In one case, the article uses the term to praise Helms, saying he scored a journalistic coup when he interviewed Adolph Hitler in 1935. Richard Helms' contact with Nazis didn't end there (and probably didn't begin there either). Helms went on to work closely with General Reinhard Gehlen, the notorious Nazi spymaster who was hired by US intelligence to set up an organization within the CIA. The Gehlen Org recruited thousands of Nazi agents to run covert operations in Eastern Europe after the war. Gehlen is, of course, not mentioned in any of recent news reports on Helms. Neither is the fact that the OSS (the US agency that preceded the CIA) had a lot in common with the SS. To both, the biggest evil in the word was summed up in one word, communism. And to both, the elimination of communists, labour activists and other undesirable elements that got in the way of corporatism was their chief preoccupation. Political assassination is a valuable weapon in the covert operative's toolbox. But it is only one tool among many. A successful right-wing covert action not only removes the enemy's head, it replaces the body politic. The CIA has been organizing regime change for 50 years. They have removed many governments that are unfriendly to US corporate interests and replaced them with regimes that are more likely to work closely and slavishly to carry out the economic and geopolitical desires of the US corporate elite. But the CIA's crimes don't end when a right-wing coup has succeeded. The CIA then has to keep its repressive despots in power in order to ensure that they can put into place and then maintain a variety of unjust economic systems and structures. This is done with arms sales (and outright gifts of surplus weapons), glowing diplomatic support, intelligence support (sic) and massive economic investment (i.e., pillaging as much profit as possible by exploiting the natural resources that drew them in there in the first place, and handing out some of the spoils to a loyal local elite). When the corporate media describe the CIA's use of political assassination as if it exists in isolation from mass imprisonment, torture and murder, they cover up the horror, pain and suffering experienced by thousands of ordinary people in countries where CIA-backed blood baths have taken place. They neglect to reveal that when the CIA carries out its high-profile assassination efforts, they also carry out murders of thousands of lesser-known political figures. It's standard procedure with many coups that thousands of grassroots activists and organizers get rounded up, tortured and killed. Such waves of mass violence make today's serial sniper in Washington look like a Boy Scout. The CIA has used such goons to eliminate its opponents and as a scare tactic to ensure that other citizens, who might otherwise have protested the regime change, decide instead to lay very low in order to stay alive. An apt example of a real CIA assassination campaign was the Phoenix Program in Vietnam. Tens of thousands of people where specifically targetted, tracked down and assassinated, many by snipers. Although Helms held the post of Director of the CIA during the height of this mass serial assassination program, none of the 98 recent stories on Helms, found with the google search engine, even mention Phoenix. Reliable estimates on the total number of people killed by the US in South East Asia during the Vietnam war range from three to five million people. But, of course, there is no mention of Helms culpability in any recent corporate media articles. they say it is taboo to speak ill of the dead, but what they don't say is that it is even more taboo to speak ill of the CIA, or breath word that CIA directors are criminals for overseeing the deliberate murder of millions of innocent civilians. During Helms' tenure as director of the CIA under President Johnson, he also oversaw the secret war against Laos. But, it was no secret for the people of Laos. Over two million tons of bombs were dropped on this small country. The word Laos is not mentioned in any of the 98 recent corporate media articles found by google in a search for Richard Helms. Tio much of the world, it's still a secret war. Another very good example of a CIA-organized regime change was a coup in 1963 that employed political assassination, mass imprisonment, torture and murder. This was the military coup that first brought Saddam Hussein's beloved Ba'ath Party to power in Iraq. At the time, Richard Helms was Director for Plans at the CIA. That is the top CIA position responsible for covert actions, like organizing coups. Helms served in that capacity until 1966, when he was made Director. In the quotations collected below, the name of the leader who was assassinated is spelled variously as Qasim, Qassim and Kassem. But, however you spell his name, when he took power in a popularly-backed coup in 1958, he certainly got recognized in Washington. He carried out such anti-American and anti-corporatist policies as starting the process of nationalizing foreign oil companies in Iraq, withdrawing Iraq from the US-initiated right-wing Baghdad Pact (which included another military-run, US-puppet state, i.e., Pakistan) and decriminalizing the Iraqi Communist Party. Despite these actions, and more likely because of them, he was Iraq's most popular leader. He had to go! In 1959, there was a failed assassination attempt on Qasim. The failed assassin was none other than a young Saddam Hussein. In 1963, a CIA-organized coup did successfully assassinate Qasim and Saddam's Ba'ath Party came to power for the first time. Saddam returned from exile in Egypt and took up the key post as head of Iraq's secret service. The CIA then provided the new pliant, Iraqi regime with the names of thousands of communists, and other leftist activists and organizers. Thousands of these supporters of Qasim and his policies were soon dead in a rampage of mass murder carried out by the CIA's close friends in Iraq. Iraq is once again a target of US regime change. Despite that, precious little is being said by the corporate media about how the CIA aided and abetted political assassination, regime change and mass murder, all in the name of putting Saddam's Ba'ath power into power for the first time in Iraq. One thing is for sure, the US will find it much harder to remove the Ba'ath Party from power in Iraq than they did putting them in power back in 1963. If more people knew about this diabolical history, they just might not be so inclined to trust the US in its current efforts to execute regime change in Iraq. Here then are some quotations that I've gathered on this fascinating early history of CIA involvement in the vicious history of regime change in Iraq: Continued..

Yeah, they came into power in 1963..

Continued.... Kroft. Sarkis Soghanalian not only provided weapons to Iraq, he inspected the front lines regularly during the war with Iran, checked out captured equipment, even helped develop Iraq's military strategy. The day before the war began, Sarkis told us in his Miami office that Iraq would, in fact, put up little or no resistance to U.S. air power. But his predictions about a ground war that is almost sure to follow are not so rosy. Sarkis. The United States is facing hard core, tough battlefield trained ground forces. Kroft. It's not going to be like Grenada? Sarkis. No. Grenada was a vacation. Panama was the same way. This is not Panama, this is not Grenada. And you're fighting a different kind of people. Kroft. What do you mean . . . ? Sarkis. Well, Iraqi soldiers can go into the desert, into sand, and sit for two, three days. They don't need no heavy arms. They don't need no distilled water, no bottled water, you know. They can get milk out of a camel and survive, but they will dig in and wait for us to come in. Kroft. Sarkis thinks the real battle will come when allied troops try to push the Iraqis out of populated areas like Kuwait City. Sarkis. How we gonna kick those guys out of the houses? It's gonna be like Berlin, wall to wall, and room to room . . . they will try to cause as much personal casualties as they can in order to embarrass our leaders here. That's their tactic. This is what's gonna be concentrated on. And Air Force superiority electronics-wise, maybe they jam all their equipment, that's . . . they don't care about that. But the major aim is how much casualty they can cause. . . . The [American] equipment is advanced equipment, but it is not for this war. You are not fighting in a climate like European climate, your fighting heat, rain, dust. It won't work. Kroft. Sarkis says the equipment he sold to Iraq has been customized to withstand the heat and sand and dust of the Middle East. He says Iraq's military hardware may be more reliable. Sarkis. Because it's not electronic . . . it's conventional weapons. Just like their tanks. They don't have air conditioning, no stabilizer, no nothing. They just, you know, the old-fashioned conventional thing. They dig a hole, they circle a couple of times, they make a hole. They sit there like a sniper and wait for the enemy to come in. And they have artillery superiority. Kroft. You sold the Iraqis quite a bit of artillery, French artillery . . . the 155 Howitzer . . self propelled? Sarkis. Yes. Kroft. Why is it superior to anything the United States has? Sarkis. We do not have the same range as this vehicle . . . this gun has. It's modified to 42 kilometers [25 miles]. What do we have in the field to match this gun? Kroft. The Iraqis have a 20 kilometer [12 mile] advantage in terms of artillery range. Sarkis. Yeah. They can fight from a distance. Kroft. And Sarkis says that the French artillery pieces he sold to Iraq, over one hundred of them, are backed by thousands of specially modified Soviet long-range cannons, as well as advanced artillery purchased from South Africa by way of Austria. Sarkis used Austria as a middle man to get around U.N. sanctions against South Africa. A lot of different people had their hands in this, one way or another. Sarkis. Oh, yeah the . . . the . . . war game. Kroft. What do you mean the war game? Sarkis. Well, some people lose blood, some people make money. That's why I don't want to get involved in this war. I don't want to make money on . . . Kroft. You're already involved in this war, aren't you? Sarkis. Well, I don't look at it that way. Kroft. A lot of that equipment that's facing the United States right now was sold to the Iraqis by you, Sarkis. Sarkis. Yeah, but I didn't sell it eight years ago to fight ourselves today. That was sold to fight Khomeini. And we were against Khomeini. U.S. had hostages there, and I said, I'll go ahead and take my share in it. Kroft. So you sold the weapons to the Iraqis to fight the. . . Sarkis. Khomeinis . . . not to fight the, you know, Americans. Kroft. Right. Because that would be best for America . . . and best maybe for Sarkis. Sarkis. Well, you get compensated sometimes. There's nothing wrong with that. And if Sarkis wouldn't do it, somebody else would do it. Kroft. And other arms dealers and countries did. Brazil provided thousands of armored vehicles. China and the Soviet Union sent tanks, missiles and munitions. German companies sold Saddam poison gas technology, and France, not only approved the sale of artillery to Iraq, but [also sold] armed helicopters and antiaircraft missile systems. This Chilean arms manufacturer [shown on screen] sold Saddam deadly cluster bombs--reportedly with technical assistance from U.S. companies, and the United States allowed American computer technology to go to Iraq as well. It allowed Sarkis to sell Hughes and Bell helicopters. The U.S. government approved the sale after Iraq promised that they would only be used for civilian purposes. Sarkis told us that the helicopters were used as transportation during Iraq's invasion of Kuwait. Sarkis. I did it with the knowledge of U.S. authorities, policy makers--and also they have delivered weapons that are equally weapons as I did. I do not have anything on my conscience. I did not sell the weapons to kill the American boys. Kroft. Which agencies of the U.S. government knew about Sarkis and his deals with Iraq? Well, according to Sarkis, almost all of them. And federal court documents show that Sarkis Soghanalian had a relationship with U.S. intelligence agencies for decades, and has performed work on their behalf. Not all of Sarkis's deals with Iraq involve weapons. He arranged the sale of $280 million in uniforms to the Iraqi army. And Sarkis's partners in the deal included former Vice President Spiro Agnew, a former Attorney General, Colonel Jack Brennan. The partners used their influence to get ex-President Nixon to provide them with these letters of introduction [shown on screen] to heads of state around the world. [To Sarkis] Do you think there was anything unusual about a former Vice President and a former Attorney General and a former Chief of Staff for the President of the United Stateas to want to be selling military uniforms to the Iraqis? Sarkis. They were not only in the uniform business. They would sell their mothers if they could, just to make the money. Kroft. Some of his partners in that deal aren't talking to him at all today. They're in court suing Sarkis over the multimillion dollar commissions they say he hasn't paid them ... [To Sarkis] Are you a Merchant of Death? You are an arms salesman. Sarkis. No. I am a coordinator of industries that produce arms. But I am not a salesman. I don't carry no bag. I don't carry no catalogue in my pocket to sell arms to anybody. Kroft. Why did this international arms dealer [sarkis]--who is currently under federal indictment in Miami--decide to talk with us? Well, Sarkis says this is one war he doesn't want any part of. Sarkis. No, this war stinks. It's not to anybody's advantage. I don't know who's advising who. This is a dirty war for us. What are we gonna do with Kuwait? We lose so many men, and next spring the Emir of Kuwait is sitting in Monaco, in Monte Carlo, happy with European girls. I'd fight for anybody that I have faith in. ... The man has 80 wives. Which one can he love, you know, if he's raising a family or a country? What do you owe the Emir of Kuwait? Why? For all this much sacrifice, or for prestige? Kroft. Which do you think? Sarkis. I think it's for ego, somebody's ego. ... Kroft. You don't think it's worth committing a half a million American troops to ... Sarkis. Hell no. ... go to die for this garbage war, no way, not me. I obey my country. I obey my President. He's a lovely man. He's a good man. He's, ah, intelligent person, but how he's making this decision, I don't know. Kroft. And Sarkis Soghanalian made a decision too. He says Iraq has approached him about breaking the current embargo and selling them more arms. He says he's not running their phone calls. Sarkis. It against my principle ... to go against U.S. policy. I'm staying away 100 percent now because I don't want to supply them with nothing. No spare parts or nothing. No vehicles, no shoes, no clothes, no nothing because they will support the enemy of today. A friend of yesterday is an enemy of today. [Page: H838] ... Kroft. And tomorrow? Sarkis. Who knows? Maybe a friend again. Kroft [closing]. For the last three years Sarkis Soghanalian has been under a federal indictment for--among other things--conspiring to sell 300 American-built Hughes combat helicopters to Iraq. The case has been stalled largely because U.S. intelligence agencies have been reluctant to turn over classified files that Sarkis says he needs to conduct his defense. END Viva la Everybody!

UNITED STATES ARMS SALES TO IRAQ: EXCERPTS OF RECENT CBS `60 MINUTES' BROADCAST (House of Representatives - January 31, 1991) [Page: H836] The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Owens of Utah). Under a previous order of the House, the gentleman from Wisconsin [Mr. Moody] is recognized for 5 minutes. Mr. MOODY. Mr. Speaker, on Sunday, January 20, the CBS television network program `60 Minutes' broadcast an extraordinary interview with an international arms dealer, Sarkis Soghanalian, who lives in Miami. I am placing in the Record a transcript of key excerpts from that interview. The revelations and allegations made by Mr. Soghanalian are, and must be, extremely disturbing to every American. They are disturbing to Mr. Soghanalian. He gives a first-hand description of official and unofficial American involvement in the enormous buildup of arms to Saddam Hussein. Much of this buildup occurred after the end of the Iran-Iraq war in 1988. He gives chilling accounts of the cozy relationship among high past and present U.S. Government officials who permitted, and in some cases, actually assisted his sales of many of the lethal weapons Saddam Hussein is now using to bring death to American military personnel and civilians throughout the Middle East region. I congratulate the staff of `60 Minutes' for bringing this explosive matter to the attention of the American public. Executive producer Don Hewitt, producer Lowell Bergman, and on-air reporter Steve Kroft have raised profound questions in this piece that demand further investigation. Mr. Speaker, last week, after his interview on `60 Minutes' I traveled to Miami to spend a day with Mr. Soghanalian exploring in greater detail many of the issues he touched on in the TV broadcast. At a later time I will share some of these items with the Congress. At this time, I can only say to my colleagues that the outline contained in the following excerpts from the `60 Minutes' broadcast only scratches the surface of where and how the dictator Saddam Hussein acquired the deadly weapons he is now using against American and allied soldiers in the gulf war. If our fears of a protracted ground war in Iraq are borne out--and I hope they won't be--hundreds and perhaps thousands of American soldiers will be wounded or killed by weapons our own Government helped Saddam Hussein acquire. Toward the end of this excerpted interview Mr. Soghanalian discusses the weaponry he has sold Iraq with the direct involvement and cooperation of various U.S. Government agencies. Mr. Speaker, this matter calls out for further investigation. Mr. Soghanalian is to be commended for his openness and his willingness to bring out into the open this most disturbing issue of the U.S. Government's role in arming Saddam Hussein. Mr. Speaker, I include for the Record the transcript of the `60 Minutes' interview. [Page: H837] The Man Who Armed Iraq Kroft. Sarkis Soghanalian is the arms dealer who armed Iraq. During the war between Iraq and Iran, despite a worldwide embargo, Sarkis sold billions in arms to Saddam Hussein. This Lebanese Armenian has made a career out of breaking international embargoes--supplying arms to countries and groups with whom the United States in particular--did not want to be seen with in public. Filling that niche made him rich. And supplying Iraq made him during the 1980s the largest private arms dealer in the world. As you would imagine, Sarkis's intimate relationship with Iraq's military gives him unique insight into their strategy. For a couple of days earlier this week, he talked with us about the arms he sold to Saddam Hussein and gave us what his assessment of what might be in store for our own troops. Sarkis. Iraqi troops will never surrender to foreign troops. If they use Egyptians on a front line, you know, for psychological reason, maybe Iraqi soldier will say, I am surrendering to another brother, but to surrender to a foreign troop like Germans or French or American, they don't . . . they will fight to their last bullet. continued below..

I'd like the soldiers home.. let them keep their oil, and we should pay for the damage we inflicted, as if that's possible. We don't need to be there (with our money) helping to rebuild Iraq..Our money can survive without us there with it. Haliburtons got enough of our tax dollars already. They are capable of building things themselves however they want to build them. Soldiers weren't trained to rebuild houses and infrastructure, they were trained to destroy it. If they wanna hire American companies in the free market to rebuild, fine. Should be their choice. I don't think guns make good hammers.

Am I? If you don't wanna be all buddy buddy the Saudi's, tell your president. I didn't say we did them wrong, I said that is why we were targeted. Many Saudi's don't like the Royal family, or our military support keeping them in power. I'll decide who I blame for what myself, thank you. Yeah, I'm sure you'd thank them for doing the same to you.. Hahahaha... how about they do the exact same to you. The laws will be just and right then. Tell em to bring it on yourself, tough guy.. What conspiracy group is that? Come back when you get a little life experience junior.. how old were you for Gulf war 1? Did you experience the 80's when Saddam was our buddy and Rummy was shaking his hand for a photo op? Why don't you explain the soundness in the logic that might = right so I can laugh at you... You proved nothing but your idiocy.. your tough guy act doesn't intimidate me or change my mind, or make you right.

Why can't I complain about both? I see no contradictions with that... Allies? We armed Saddam, Osama, Noriega, etc.. at one time or another... Killed one, hunting another, invaded Panama and imprisioned the third.. 16 hijackers were from Saudi Arabia... Lets sell them a nuke.. Good God. I wasn't really complaining.. I asked if it was smart. Like I said, what the hell do I know? One thing I do know, might does not = right and fear does not = respect. Pretty much the opposite. Both lead to hate.. A fact of life.. Human nature.

What the hell are you babbling about? I think the people that did it are responsible, and dead. Why should I move to Saudi Arabia? I'm an American.. I merely stated a FACT that we were targeted by mainly Saudis because of our military presence and bases located in Saudi Arabi. Maybe you should personally invite the Saudis to put a base in your town... For invading their country under false pretenses, destroying their infrastructure, and killing innocent people. How about they bully you into following their laws, tough guy? We aint settled and comfortable in our country yet, how do you plan to pull that off? I don't subscribe to might = right. I know better.. people get to the point where they don't care if you threaten/kill them. They'll fly planes into your skyscrapers and kill themselves. Why do you think the truth is America bashing? Perhaps that should make you think..

We'll all pay the bill on that one.. Humans have been struggling against it since the dawn of time. Since the first man clubbed another and saw the fear in the onlookers and what could be done with it.. Some things never change.

Appears that war has been raging on for 60 years now.. Korea. Time to come home..

All I can imagine is two guys in another country talking about you and I and our country like that and it gives me the willies...

I don't think he's an isolationist Snaf.. just doesn't buy into the might = right theory.

Any government we "approve" will be looked at suspiciously I'm afraid..

Well said.. an apology wouldn't hurt either.

My problem with that, is that reversed, would never be acceptable to us no matter what. It's not a state getting highway funds or else, we're talking about.. it's foreign invaders.. just try to imagine one kicking in your door. Angry little guy from China, telling you what to do at the barrel of a gun. Non - compliance is the only option I'd see.... One mans insurgent is another mans hero. It depends on the eyes, I think. Hard for me to imagine that type of horror, let alone understand what it would be like in reality and how I'd feel.. I think I'd be pissed off..