Body of Iraqi general found - executed

Dagens Eko (Swedish Radio News) ^ | 20th April 2003 | Bengt Therner

[ScaniaBoy]

Reported on Swedish Radio News 5.45 PM (GMT+1):

After a two day search among the countless graves outside the Abu Greb prison 75 km west of Baghdad the headless body of the former Iraqi airforce general Ali Hussein Habib was found in a shallow grave.

The body was identified by Habib's widow and brother in-law, Abu Haldoun. Habib was a retired air-force general who had been one of the persons in charge of the Iraqi chemical weapons program.

General Habib was one of the few Iraqis who eventually agreed to be interviewed by UN weapons inspectors without any Iraqi government agents present.

The day before the bombings of Baghdad started Habib was arrested and taken away. Five days ago the family received a tip to look for his body among the graves outside the prison.

Bengt Terner (reporter for Swedish Radio News in Baghdad) has tried to locate the families of those Iraqis who cooperated with the weapons inspectors.

(Translated from Swedish)

[whadizit]

How interesting! Thank you!

[whadizit]

"Last week his brother was arrested in Iraq.."

It would be great to find out what has happened to him now that prisons are opened.

[ScaniaBoy]

Thanks for a most interesting reply.

I had never heard of Gwynne Roberts before but thanks to the Internet all you have to do is a quick search. Apparently her report did create quite a stir a few years ago. However, the story was quickly debunked by those in the know - one person in special climbed out on a limb, and stated that it was completely impossible. Who?

Well, no other than the intrepid dr Hans Blix.

I'll post the rebuttal and then we will just have to wait and see. The US forces should know where to look at least.

http://www.casi.org.uk/discuss/2002/msg00961.html

* DID IRAQ CONDUCT A CLANDESTINE NUCLEAR TEST?
by Evelyn Leopold

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters, 11th June [2001]) - The chief U.N. arms inspector and experts at a London think tank have concluded there was no evidence Iraq had carried out a successful nuclear test in 1989, as alleged in news reports
earlier this year.

Hans Blix, the executive chairman of the U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission, said he reported to the U.N. Security Council last week ``the information is totally wrong'' that Iraq conducted a nuclear test beneath Lake Rezazza, southwest of Baghdad on Sept. 19, 1989, before the Gulf War.

He told reporters his department and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) had evidence in its files, from overhead flights and previous ground inspections ``there had been no nuclear tests'' nor a tunnel under the lake.

Purported evidence of a test, from two defecting former scientists in Iraq and an interpretation of satellite photographs of the test area, was reported in London's Sunday Times newspaper in February and received fairly wide coverage.

Terry Wallace, a professor of Geosciences at the University of Arizona, says that while it is far easier to prove something did happen than to prove it did not there was no reason to believe the story is ``anything but a hoax.''

An examination of global earthquake catalogs, produced by the International Seismic Center and U.S. Geological Survey, revealed no significant seismic activity in Iraq the day the test was alleged to have taken place, Wallace said.

Such an explosion he said, in an article for the London-based think tank, the Verification, Training and Information Center, would have been easily detectable by international or by regional monitoring in Iran, Israel or Jordan, which keep records of earthquakes.

None of them reported any seismic events of the magnitude necessary for a nuclear test in the region around Lake Rezazza, Wallace said.

U.N. arms inspectors have not been permitted to track down Baghdad's weapons of mass destruction since mid-December 1998, when they were withdrawn shortly before the United States and Britain launched a four-day bombing campaign prompted by Iraq's failure to cooperate with the arms teams.

Blix's agency has now signed a contract with a private, satellite firm and is restarting overhead flights this month.

Earlier this year, Western intelligence agencies alleged that Iraq had reconstituted parts of its banned arms programs. The German Federal Intelligence Agency (BND) in February told selected reporters Iraq could produce a nuclear device in three years and fire a missile as far as Europe by 2005.

U.S. and British officials alleged in January that Iraq had rebuilt three factories capable of producing chemical and biological weapons.

The IAEA, meanwhile, carried out its annual inspection of the Iraq's Tuwaitha nuclear power center in January and reported that low-grade nuclear material held there had not been moved since its last visit.

[I think you will note that several of the objections have already been addressed by Ms Roberts, for instance the seismic signals...]

ScaniaBoy

[ScaniaBoy]

Sorry for late reply...time zones are a bitch.

There was not that more information in the article.

It finsihed with a description of how the body was loaded into the back of a small truck, together with a shovle and some tires, and the wife and her brother drove away.

I will e-mail the reporter, commend him for an excellent article and ask if he has any further news about them or other families who were involved with the inspectors.

ScaniaBoy

[SuziQ]

ABC had found documents that showed that the Iraqis had bugged the UN inspectors

Sadaam bugged the UN inspectors? I'm shocked, shocked, I tell you!

[Lancey Howard]

"HA haaa..."

[patriciaruth]

Probably a suicide

Absolutely. He was so distraught he cut his head off.

[patriciaruth]

I am really suprised we havent seen severe in-fighting in Baghdad ending with someone swinging from a light pole.

Oli North reported once about a week ago that he had seen two corpses hanging from light poles, but then no more was heard. Looters are big news; but swingers aren't apparently.

[patriciaruth]

I wonder if there is anyone alive who knows where the chemicals were buried?

One report I saw said that many places had been professionally housecleaned.

[Irish Eyes]

I agree. Remember his comments about the Iraqi who tried to give evidence to the inspectors, and was dragged out of their car by Iraqi soldiers: "I hope he tries to contact us in a more elegant way next time..."

Do you think that he is still alive? I doubt that he is still around to give anyone information.

[patriciaruth]

They were probably killed soon after the misdeed of hiding.

An old tradition is an area that invented killing the laborers that built the secret chambers in the pyramids.

[GraniteStateConservative]

He may have a tattoo or body scars or something the wife knows about.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Thanks for posting the story from the London Times!

Very interesting !

[M. Peach]

I just saw this looking through some archives - did anything ever happen from a follow up by the U.S.?

[ScaniaBoy]

No, I haven't heard anything specific.

Kay did bring up the fact that several of the scientist they wanted to interview where killed either before or after the first interview. This general was possibly included in that statement.

It seems that the CIA and other intelligence organisations have mismanaged the search for WMD's. But that's what we know now. I still hope that President Bush will produce something more definite closer to election day.

ScaniaBoy

[M. Peach]

How about that poor guy who went to the weapons inspectors with information and was led away by the Iraqi military. Was he ever identified (dead or alive?)

[bray]

Can he now vote as a DumbocRat??? The WMD was moved to Syria and buried in the desert! Hans McGoo couldn't fine the soap in a shower!

Pray for W and Our Troops

[ScaniaBoy]

Again, I wish I had an answer but I don't.

If I ever happen to see Mr Blix, I will ask him, but I'm sure he has forgotten all about this incident.

Why bother about some uncivilized Iraqi, who didn't contact the UN through proper channels, ie the Iraqi UN office or such like?

(My contempt for that man is bottomless.)

[hershey]

Peter Jennings would blame it on Bush. If we hadn't gone to war, the general would still be alive. Here's the weeping family, etc..