Sites Holmquist trys, and often fails, to go no more than a couple of days without visiting (some of which Holmquist regularly swipes links from without attribution)
"A close aide to Saddam Hussein says the Iraqi dictator did in fact get rid of his weapons of mass destruction but deliberately kept the world guessing about it in an effort to divide the international community and stave off a U.S. invasion," the Associated Press writes in an August 1 story. "The strategy, which turned out to be a serious miscalculation, was designed to make the Iraqi dictator look strong in the eyes of the Arab world, while countries such as France and Russia were wary of joining an American-led attack. At the same time, Saddam retained the technical know-how and brain power to restart the programs at any time...The official refused to be identified, citing fear of assassination by Saddam's paramilitaries who, he said, remain active throughout Iraq. But in several interviews, the former aide detailed what he said were the reasons behind Saddam's disinformation campaign which ultimately backfired by spurring, rather than deterring a U.S. invasion. According to the aide, by the mid-1990s 'it was common knowledge among the leadership" that Iraq had destroyed its chemical stocks and discontinued development of biological and nuclear weapons. But Saddam remained convinced that an ambiguous stance about the status of Iraq's weapons programs would deter an American.'"
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"As the hunt for Saddam Hussein intensifies, some U.S. officials are suggesting that the focus on the former leader of Iraq has come at the cost of eliminating the eccentric Saudi millionaire behind the 9/11 attacks," Michael Duffy and Massimo Calabresi write in a Time story from today.
He also had some political points to make. Mr. Mellencamp's new song "To Washington," with an Appalachian melody by way of the Carter Family and Woody Guthrie, showed misgivings about the current Bush administration and war in Iraq. And when Mr. Mellencamp sang Bob Dylan's "Highway 61 Revisited," with its verse about a roving gambler trying to create a next world war, he made it a "Texas gambler" and altered the last lines: "Just give Donald Rumsfeld about a million guns, and have it out on Highway 61."
