Posted on 03/01/2003 8:43:29 PM PST by HAL9000
http://www.terravista.pt/aguaalto/2088/wsj03.html
Bill Clinton, Stanley Ho, Ng Lap Seng, Mochtar Riady, Charlie Trie, Mark Middleton, Joseph Giroir, etc. - the gang's all here.
AFP has been wrong before - but I'd bet they have an accurate report of the SCMP article in this case.
I wonder if Slick is involved with this "deal" in any way behind the scenes?
Yeah, the Dan Rather interview - where he also said he didn't have any prohibited weapons and he would not destroy his missiles.
I hear this and think of Bush in a bowling finals match .... winning with a 6 / 10 combination for the final spare after an Afghanistan strike.
Kim offers asylum to Saddam: report
HONG KONG: North Korean leader Kim Jong Il has offered political asylum to Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, according to a front page story in Sunday's South China Morning Post.
The bizarre tale appears to be the kind of news story that newspapers like to publish on April Fool's Day, except for one thing: it has a credible source.
He is Stanley Ho Hung-sun, the wealthy magnate who runs Macau's gambling casinos, through whom "high-level North Korean officials have offered the Iraqi dictator and his family 11th hour sanctuary in a mountain in North Korea".
Chinese billionaires like Ho do not always possess political acumen but it is usually difficult to take them for a ride. Ho told the SCMP that senior level North Korean officials "told me that there really was a chance to prevent a war and (they) said that Saddam Hussein could step down two days before the US and Britain started to bomb Iraq and he (Saddam) could call democratic elections".
Ho goes on to say that "one of the conditions of those elections would be that none of the candidates would be allowed funding from the US, ensuring that there was no American interference in a future Iraqi democratic state. Anyone who did accept money from the US would be shot"--presumably by a Saddam who had not entirely stepped down prior to the election.
Ho extolled this initiative by saying that "it could be (Saddam Hussein's) trump card. North Korea is willing to give Saddam and his family a mountain in North Korea."
The news story seems to be straight out of Ripley's "Believe It Or Not" except for one thing: Ho does have North Korean connections. The SCMP notes that in 1999 Stanley invested US$30 million in the North when he opened a Casino Pyongyang next to the Korean Workers Party headquarters.
Hussein is using the "peace movement" to stay in power as long as possible. Why did Korea "act up" when they did? As a diversion to Iraq. So far, President Bush has all but ignore them because thay are irrational bluster.
When it becomes evident that the US and GB will attack, Hussein will go underground. We will face a final dilemma. Do we attack "leaderless Iraq" (read that kill innocent women and children in the press)? Also we will sustain our own losses.
If we don't attack he will re-emerge. If we do attack, he will show up in exile. North Korea is good for him because he will be "untouchable" for retribution and he will have the legacy he seeks...leader of the Muslims...from Korea.
How could our intelligence community be so inept as to miss this? Ask Carter who began to dismantle it then ask The Democratic controlled congresses who hobbled it, then ask Clintoon who neutered it.
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