(From debka)
First Defection from Top Rank of Saddam Regime
Exclusive from DEBKA-Net-Weekly 97 Feb.14
Adib Shaaban, the right hand of Saddam Hussein’s powerful son Uday, has defected.
DEBKA-Net-Weekly reports exclusively that this key member of Saddam Hussein’s administration, who was charged with his son’s most sensitive missions, traveled to Jeddah at the beginning of this week, saying he needed to put through some gold transactions ahead of the war.
From Jeddah, he flew to Beirut and… disappeared.
US intelligence sources report that Shaaban never really went to Beirut. He made his way under cover to Damascus Monday and was picked up by an unmarked plane for an unknown destination.
As Uday’s closest aide, he also managed a chain of official publications, including the authoritative Babel, and was in on the Saddam regime’s deepest secrets.
Uday commands the secret army known as Saddam’s Fedayeen, the backbone of Baghdad’s defenses and custodian of the weapons of mass destruction that were not smuggled out to Lebanon.
Uday is also the chief of the ruling Baath Party’s covert service.
Shaaban must therefore be a veritable treasury of Saddam Hussein’s secrets. In American hands, Uday’s chef de bureau would be even more valuable than the proverbial smoking gun.
(I hope this is correct and we get our hands on him - the data from him would be very, very nice to have. Although if we do have our hands on him, I somehow doubt we're going to hear about it in the open press for several weeks, for obvious reasons...)
February 20 2003, 10:56:17 UTC 12 years ago
February 20 2003, 12:11:51 UTC 12 years ago
This is the very "smoking gun" that the world has been asking the US to produce. Any useful information he has will only drive us further toward war.
February 20 2003, 17:06:55 UTC 12 years ago
Plus of course, it would be nice to have some concrete information about what's actually happening in there...