US 'PAID OFF ARMY LEADERS'
By Chris Hughes
MANY of Saddam's top military henchmen were secretly paid off and air-lifted to safe havens by US special forces as Baghdad fell, it was claimed last night.
The double-dealing Republican Guard leader Maher Sufyan ordered his division to lay down their arms after the US agreed to take him by Apache helicopter to a secret location
Iraqi troops around Baghdad had slipped away before the US advance, dumping huge caches of arms in the streets behind them.
Details of the CIA's dealings were kept confidential as the Iraqi capital fell for fear of reprisals against Saddam loyalists as other negotiations took place.
A military source at US Central Command in Qatar said yesterday: "The fact that the coalition was able to make these deals meant we took Baghdad with surprising ease."
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/allnews/page.cfm?objectid=12853045&method=full&siteid=50143
Le Monde and Al Jazeera carried similar reports, and noted that Maher Sufyan was not one of those pictured on the DoD playing cards, according to http://la.indymedia.org/print.php?id=52299.
I guess none of "our" embedded reporters at the Pentagon thought to ask.
>Asia Times - April 25, 2003
>
>THE ROVING EYE
>The Baghdad deal
>
>By Pepe Escobar
>
>BAGHDAD - Much of the world was surprised. After the spirited
>resistance in the south of Iraq, how could Baghdad possibly have
>fallen in only two days?
>
>An Asia Times Online investigation in Baghdad, Tikrit and Najaf has
>yielded a clear certainty among Iraqis, both Sunni and Shi'ite, as
>to the answer: The Pentagon and the Ba'ath Party leadership made a
>safqua ("secret deal" in Arabic) for the (almost) bloodless fall of
>Baghdad. Crucially, this safqua may have included a package of
>American green cards for top Republican and Special Republican Guard
>commanders and their families.
>
>"Shaku maku"? ("What's new"?). "Makushi"? (No news). In the answer
>to this popular exchange in Baghdad slang, makushi has been replaced
>by safqua.
>
>Mohammed al-Douri, the Iraqi ambassador to the United Nations, was
>the one who pronounced the famous last words "the game is over" -
>referring to the end of Saddam Hussein's regime. And a game it might
>well have been. (Al-Douri, according to al-Jazeera television, has
>enjoyed safe passage to Syria, and might even end up the UN
>ambassador of the new Iraqi government).
>
>[...]
>
><http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/ED25Ak04.html>
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