From: "Miller, Jeffrey" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > From: Bryon Daly: > Seems ridiculous to me. The US gladly paid out $30 million > to the tipster > for the Hussein boys, and freely stated so. Why would this > be different?
I don't understand what your point is - this article only briefly mentions the reward money.. did you actually read the article? If so, this is the best criticism you can come up with, something it doesn't even talk about?
Yes, I did read it. At least twice. The article suggests that the US wouldn't want to get Saddam through using a tip-off, for reason of national pride. I mention the money because it is proof that the US *was* willing to use a tip-off to get the sons, and quite publicly discussed it, which I don't think would be significantly different on the national-pride thing.
Further.. hell yeah, I'd negotiate the reward money if I was a low-level flunky in Dr Evil's empire. You bet your ass I wouldn't accept a check, and cash? Forget it! You think I'd live more than about 2 minutes after driving a car out of the US Embassy loaded with $25M in $100 bills
I rather imagined a free ticket to the US, England, or wherever else they wanted would be included, and that the money would safely be deposited in any bank of the tipster's choice. And while the tipsters might not want to trust us, we had already demonstrated that we were willing to make good on the money promise, with the sons' tipster.
(do you understand exactly how BULKY even $1M in $100 bills is? http://www.cockeyed.com/inside/million/million.html )
Yes I do. I worked in the high-security bulk/coin teller area of a bank headquarters. I've wheeled carts around containing $4-5 million in cash and seen piles of $20-50 million. It is actually surprisingly, almost disappointingly, small, when you see it. (An interesting side note: $1 million was stolen from that area just a few weeks after I left the job! They never caught anyone for it, even though access to the area was restricted to at most about a dozen people, and the place was littered with cameras. I have my suspicions about who did it, though.)
>In fact, I think that if he had been > betrayed and turned over by his own closest people, it would > have been a > powerful message to the remaining fighters that the cause is > lost. That, > and some happy Iraqis with a giant $25 million check makes > good PR as well, > and could encourage future sellouts among the terrorists.
Yeah, they'll just head down to the local Money Tree or other Pay-Day Loan company and cash that puppy...
No, of course not, as I say above. I was just being a bit flippant - the giant check would be for PR purposes.
Seriously tho, its looking more and more like Saddam had squat-all to do with day-to-day >coordination, and now that Lebenese super-terrorist whotsisface is in southern Iraq (by many >reports)...
Quite possibly. I'm not asserting otherwise, just that I doubt that he was a captive of his own people, about to be turned in for the money.
> Also, if he was captive, why would they leave him with > AK-47's, a pistol, and the cash?
They didn't. The AK-47s were above ground, and the Pentagon has quickly yet quietly backed away from the story that Saddam had a pistol.
The article states "Left with him were two AK-47 assault guns and a pistol". I haven't seen anything about this and even read a bried blurb about one of the Iraqi CPA leaders asking Saddam why he didn't use his pistol (I don't remember the exact reply, but it wasn't "I didn't have a pistol"). Do you have a link to any news articles about him having no pistol?
For that matter, where was the communications equipment and records required to run an operation the size and sophistication that the Iraqi resistence is engaging in? what, was he yelling orders up that ventilation pipe?
Again, I having no idea what his level of control/involvement was. That wasn't my point.
I'll just ask my question about your other email here rather than make a second post...
From Jeffrey Miller: From Damon Agretto:Apparently it's because the individual did not surrender the information willingly, and had to be subjected to a "hard" interrogation, according to the TV news report last nite...
Lovely. Did we do the work ourselves, or is this how some unspecified 3rd country is
participating in the Coalition?
You seem to be assuming that "hard" interrogation means torture. Do you think that there are no acceptable strong means of interrogation that don't involve torture?
-Bryon
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