We've read here and elsewhere about the neocon-engineered document drop; I doubt the dumpers were looking for what this AP reporter found:
By CHARLES J. HANLEY, AP Special Correspondent
BAGHDAD, Iraq - Exasperated, besieged by global pressure,
Saddam Hussein and top aides searched for ways in the 1990s to prove to the world they'd given up banned weapons.
"We don't have anything hidden!" the frustrated Iraqi president interjected at one meeting, transcripts show.
At another, in 1996, Saddam wondered whether U.N. inspectors would "roam
Iraq for 50 years" in a pointless hunt for weapons of mass destruction. "When is this going to end?" he asked.
More quotes and link below. Watch your step on the bump!
Yahoo/AP: Documents Show Saddam's WMD Frustrations
Some background:
The newly released documents are among U.S. government translations of audiotapes or Arabic-language transcripts from top-level Iraqi meetings -- dating from about 1996-97 back to the period soon after the 1991
Gulf War, when the U.N. Security Council sent inspectors to disarm Iraq.
And a few graphs later, a refreshing splash of zesty objectivity:
Scores of Iraqi documents, seized after the 2003 invasion, are being released at the request of the U.S. House Intelligence Committee chairman, Rep. Peter Hoekstra (news, bio, voting record), who has suggested that evidence might turn up that the Iraqis hid their weapons or sent them to neighboring Syria. No such evidence has emerged.
And a bit of personal history from a Saddam higher-up:
Amer Mohammed Rashid, a top weapons program official, told a 1996 presidential meeting he laid out the facts to the U.N. chief inspector.
"We don't have anything to hide, so we're giving you all the details," he said he told Rolf Ekeus.
Not bad -- let's all recommend this story, and maybe a few more of Dear Leader's 31% will see it . . .