SADDAM'S BODYGUARD REVEALS SECRET ARSENAL
by Gordon Thomas
(GLOBE-INTEL)
Saddam's senior bodyguard has fled from Iraq with details of Saddam's
secret arsenal.
His revelations come the day the UN inspectors report to the Security
Council whether they have found a smoking gun that will trigger war.
Abu Hamdi Mahmoud has provided a list of sites that so far the UN inspectors
have not visited. They include:
An underground chemical weapons facility at the southern end of the
Jadray Peninsula in Baghdad.
A Scud assembly area near Ramadi. The missiles come from North
Korea.
Two underground bunkers in Iraq's Western desert. These contain
bio weapons.
William Tierney, a former UN weapons inspector who has continued to
gather information on Saddam's arsenal, described Mahmoud's information
as "the smoking gun. Once the inspectors go to where Mahmoud has
pointed them, then it's all over for Saddam".
Tierney still has high level contacts in Washington that reach into
the White House.
He said that the information we publish today on Mahmoud's revelations
"checks out, absolutely checks out".
Tierney believes it is "inevitable" that we will go to war.
Globe-Intel has independently obtained documents smuggled out of Iraq
which show he does have weapons of mass destruction that have eluded discovery
by UN inspectors.
The weapons include motorised underwater mines capable of creeping
along the sea bed and then surfacing beneath a battleship or carrier.
Each mine is filled with chemicals that upon explosion can envelop
the ship in a deadly cloud of poison.
The documents show that the mines and other weapons of mass destruction
have been secretly developed at sites the UN inspectors have also not visited.
These are:
Al-Qaqa's State Establishment. Sixty miles south of Baghdad, it
has produced what the documents describe as "self-detonating precise guided
missiles".
Near State Establishment. It is on the western side of the Baghdad-Mosul
road. It has produced "artillery rounds and other machined metal
parts" for the mines.
The mines have been machine-finished at Hateen State Establishment,
to the north of Baghdad.
In the past weeks, they have been moved to Basra - ready to be launched
against the naval armada assembling in the Gulf.
One document reveals:
"The mines use a special camera to distinguish the target above it.
The mines then stop under the target. Once in place they produce
chemical materials which generates huge amounts of oxygen that guides
the mine to the surface. When the amount of oxygen reaches a specific
level, the pressure of the oxygen triggers the detonator which results
in a tremendous explosion".
The documents reveal that test firings of the mine were carried out
on Lake Tharthar on June 5 last year. The tests are described as
"completely successful".
Mahmoud's revelations have also enabled both George Bush and Tony Blair
to take an even stronger stand against anti-war protesters when they meet
in Washington this week.
Mahmoud was a member of the elitist unit charged with protecting Saddam.
It is called the Murasiq Qun - the "Inner Circle". He was known as
"The Gatekeeper". Mahmoud is the muscular Saddam lookalike who is
always photographed standing either behind Saddam when he is seated - or
to his left when on the move.
He was trained to spot the slightest threat to Saddam. To deal
with it, he had a throwing knife up his right sleeve.
"In any threat my first job was to throw myself over Saddam to protect
his body and then use my knife", he has told his Mossad debriefers.
Now he's at the top of Saddam's kill list. But there is no way
Saddam's own assassination unit - the Hamaya Khasa - can get to Mahmoud.
He is now protected by a team of Israeli agents.
For weeks he was in secret negotiation with a Mossad agent in Baghdad.
With the promise he could not be charged with any crimes he committed on
behalf of Saddam, and he would be given a new identity - including having
his appearance changed by surgery - Mahmoud agreed to desert.
Last week he was being debriefed in a high security base in Israel's
Negev Desert. Ariel Sharon, the country's hard-line prime minister
has so far only allowed snippets of Mahmoud's sensational claims to be
shared with the CIA and MI6.
But a source close to Sharon says he wants to use the revelations when,
as expected, he returns to power after the country's election (tomorrow,
Monday).
"Sharon intends to shatter the growing anti-war movement. He
plans to call all those European leaders who are wavering to let them know
how Saddam has continued to fool Hans Blix and his inspectors", said the
source.
Mahmoud's revelations include:
Locations of five bunkers buried beneath purpose made sand dunes.
Stockpiled in the bunkers are warheads identical to the empty shell
cases found two weeks ago by the UN inspectors.
Mahmoud has claimed those shells were on their way to be refilled and
stored in the bunkers.
A portion of a transcript from his debriefing includes:
"Saddam's weapons of mass destruction are also concealed in a tunnel
complex deep beneath the sewers of Baghdad and in an underground complex
in Ouja, to the north of Tikrit. The complex was build five years
ago with help from Chinese engineers.
"The actual entrance to the site is through a house in Tikrit.
It is the home of one of Saddam's cousins. The entrance is over half
a mile from where the weapons are stored".
Mahmoud has also provided the first really detailed insights into how
Saddam lives and is protected.
Mahmoud says since the Gulf War there have been nine assassination
attempts on Saddam. The most recent was in February last year.
Mahmoud has described how he was selected.
"I was on gate duty at one of Saddam's palaces. One night he arrived
in a 10-car convoy. I checked all the vehicles and Saddam stepped
out of one car and asked why I inspected them all and not just his.
I told him I was not sure in which car he was travelling and that it was
in his honour that I checked all the cars. He replied, 'from now
on you will be at my side all the time'. He also doubled my salary".
Joining the "Inner Circle", Mahmoud found himself in a world far removed
from the life of the starving population of Iraq. He received the
finest food and had the best weapons. He had access to top level
intelligence - so that he could help to plan Saddam's protection.
In another excerpt from his debriefing, Mahmoud boasts: "I was inside
the innermost circle where Saddam eats and sleeps. I was among the
handful of bodyguards closest to him". The bodyguard has given a
rare glimpse of what life is like with Saddam.
"Very few people are allowed close to Saddam. Many of the TV images
you see of him were taken years ago. Most people now only speak to
him over the phone. He usually calls them. If they have to
call him back with information he wants, it is passed through his sons,
Quasy or Tariq Aziz.
"All those close to him have codes, which they use to access the outer
circle. But even they can only come so close to Saddam before there
is a cut-off point - the Inner Circle. Even Tariq Aziz is checked
to see if he is carrying weapons. Saddam knows fortunes are being
offered to have him assassinated", Mahmoud has revealed.
The most protected of all Saddam's palaces is the Qesser al-Quwwa Sitta'shar
in Tikrit - close to his birthplace. Mahmoud has described how the
palace has four main entrances - and has the latest Chinese-manufactured
surveillance equipment.
"There are sensors and matchbox sized cameras everywhere. There
are doors which can only be opened by placing your face on a key pad.
"The palace has a number of escape routes that are outside the palace
walls. At each escape point there are cars. A car is always
parked at each exit. No one knows what exit Saddam will use.
On the way to one he can change his mind and go to another. I have
know him change his mind several times over thirty feet.
"Saddam's own living quarters in the palace are a labyrinth of doors.
To even enter the private sanctum requires having the separate codes to
open four doors. On the reverse side of each door is a monitor which
shows the Special Guards on duty who is entering".
Saddam's paranoia has increased after his son, Uday, narrowly escaped
assassination. He is now wheelchair bound.
To avoid even his own bodyguards being tempted to kill him, Saddam himself
is, according to Mahmoud, a walking arsenal.
"He has concealed guns all over his body. He also has panic buttons
to press if he even suspects somebody is about to attack him", the former
bodyguard has said.
Israeli intelligence sources have hinted that part of the deal with
Mahmoud was to smuggle out his family from Iraq. Mossad have done
this before. At the start of Saddam's reign of terror they persuaded
an Iraqi pilot to fly his Russian Mirage to Israel - after Mossad had spirited
his wife and children there.
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Books by Gordon Thomas:
Robert Maxwell: Israel's Superspy: The...
Gideon's Spies: The Secret History of the Mossad
Seeds of Fire: China And The Story.Behind The Attack on America
"Prisoner of the Taliban"- Yvonne Ridley
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