DEBKAfileâ Exclusive sources: Syria offers to expel 8 members of Saddamâs inner circle in a message reaching Washington through âRussian intelligence channelsâ. They are former vice president Izzat Ibrahim Al-Douri, Saddamâs bureau chief Abd Hamoud, Baath party boss Aziz Salah, special security service chief Hanni Tefalah, Republican Guards Secretary Kemal Mustafa, Republican Guards Commander Seif A-Din Suleih, Iraqi Intelligence Commander Taher Jaloul and Special Republican Guards commander, Gen. Barzan Suleiman Tikriti. This is Damascusâs first admission to harboring Saddamâs top aides â as first exposed in DEBKAfile on April 5. Its language hints at Syrian willingness to discuss extradition. ---------------------------------------------- Remember these people they are offering to expel are the same people they vehemently denied ever harbouring!! And for those that questioned Debka as a dubious source of information.... âThe United States Library of Congress preserves the Nationâs cultural artifacts and provides enduring access to them. The Libraryâs traditional functions, acquiring, cataloging, preserving and serving collection materials of historical importance to the Congress and to the American people to foster education and scholarship, extend to digital materials, including websites. The Library has selected your site (www.debka.com) for inclusion in the historic collection of the 2003 War on Iraq Internet materials. The Library requests your permission to collect your website. Our plan is to engage the Internet Archive, on behalf of the Library of Congress, to collect content from your website at regular intervals during the war. The Library will make this collection available to researchers onsite at Library facilities. The Library also wishes to make the collection available to offsite researchers by hosting the collection on the Libraryâs public access website. The Library hopes that you share its vision of preserving Web materials about the War and permitting researchers from across the world to access them.â Needless to say, DEBKAfile has acceded to this request.
ahem, you appear to be confusing Gen. Barzan Suleiman Tikriti the recently captured Barzan Ibrahim Al-Tikrit, Saddamâs half-brother, captured Thursday. Tsk-tsk. As much as I would like to see a good test of Debka's accuracy, all they say is that Syria has made an "offer" to "expel" the men. For any number of reasons, the theoretical deal could fail to come off, even if something like what Debka describes actually took place. I can think of a couple of recent major Debka headlines that have gone nowhere: They flagrantly mis-called the commencement of the war, and they were going on and on a couple of months ago about impending "megaterror" incidents. The latter could of course still be borne out, but Debka's till on probation in my book. Can someone - Babak maybe? - point out some significant story that Debka got the scoop on?
I don't really want this to degenerate into Debka said this...or Debka said that... but you asked what they got a scoop on recently...and I can remember they said a while back that a pipeline was shutdown between Syria and Iraq (weeks before other news agencies reported the same).
It's not my aim to "expose" Debka or argue about it. I find the site interesting, but there are some people I respect who make a point of not reading Debka, just as there are others whom I respect - yourself included - who like it. I'm merely interested in getting a realistic sense of how useful and dependable Debka's "exclusives" are.
DEBKAfile: Kemal Mustafa, Saddamâs son-in-law, was one of eight top aides given asylum Syria. Assad surrendered him after receiving Washingtonâs ultimatum to give up Saddamâs men and WMD or face imminent military action.
Washington to Syria: Hand over Saddamâs WMD First DEBKAfile Special Report April 21, 2003, 12:43 PM (GMT+02:00) Sunday, April 20, Damascus surrendered a top official of the Saddam Husseinâs regime, one of the eight granted sanctuary (as listed by DEBKAfile last Friday, April 18), Republican Guards secretary Kemal Mustafa al Tikriti, who is married to Saddamâs youngest daughter. The Syrians pushed him across the border to Iraq where he âsurrenderedâ to US forces. This was Syrian president Bashar Assadâs first response to the newly-delivered US ultimatum: deliver Iraqâs WMD and regime leaders or face military action. President George W. Bush noted with satisfaction that Syria was beginning to âunderstand the messageâ. But, according to DEBKAfileâs Washington sources, the handover of all the high-ranking Iraqi fugitives sheltering in Syria will not satisfy the US government or get it off the Assad governmentâs back. The US ultimatum to Damascus consists of three demands, to be followed in the same order: First ,give up the weapons of mass destruction that Saddam has secretly hidden in Syria. Second , return to Iraq all the officials of the Saddam regime granted asylum. Last Friday, DEBKAfile listed the top eight as being: former vice president Izzat Ibrahim Al-Douri, Saddamâs bureau chief Abd Hamoud, Baath party boss Aziz Salah, special security service chief Hanni Tefalah, Republican Guards Secretary Kemal Mustafa, Republican Guards Commander Seif A-Din Suleih, Iraqi Intelligence Commander Taher Jaloul and Special Republican Guards commander, Gen. Barzan Suleiman Tikriti. Kemal Mustafa was handed over Sunday. Third ,disband the command structures of the Hizballah, Hamas, Jihad Islami and other Palestinian terrorist groups operating out of Lebanon and Damascus and give their leaders into American hands. Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak and other Arab emissaries, diplomatic and covert, who called on the Syrian president on Sunday laid stress on the first of the three demands as paramount. They warned him that Bush and his team will not rest as long as Syria withholds the evidence to show the world that America fought a just war against Iraq. The evidence that Saddam developed weapons of mass destruction is hidden in Syria. Washington may hold back a few days but, ultimately, Assad will not be allowed to dictate the way the war ends by denying the United States the primary fruits of victory â and not just over Saddam and his regime. Exposure of his banned arsenal will show up the error of those opposed the war, the United Nations, France, Germany, Russia and international anti-war opinion. The Syrian rulerâs responded initially to the triple demand by an offer to gradually turn over the eight Iraqi leaders. He denied knowledge of any weapons of mass destruction hidden in Syria but promised to check again. In confidence, he told his close aides, according to DEBKAfileâs intelligence sources, that baring a single Iraqi unconventional weapon to the Americans would be suicidal for him, whether personally or as an Arab leader. He dare not stand out as the first and only Arab leader to surrender an Islamic weapon of mass destruction to the United States. As for the terrorist groups that Syria sponsors and hosts, Assad declared firmly that he will always regard them as freedom fighters â not terrorists. These maneuvers were the Syrian presidentâs way of defusing the bomb Washington had laid at his feet by breaking it down into components. It is hard to imagine Washington letting him get away with this tactic. DEBKAfileâs Washington and Middle East sources all agree that, while welcoming the handover of Saddamâs list of eight, the Bush administration will not relent on its first and primary demand for the forbidden weapons arsenal. If Syria fails to hand it over voluntarily, the United States will take forcible action to recover it from its hiding place. The ultimatum to Assad was not the only one Washington delivered Sunday, April 20, to a Middle East figure. The second one went to Yasser Arafat in Ramallah . The day before, on Saturday, the penny dropped in Washington that the wrangling between Arafat and the first Palestinian prime minister designate Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) over the makeup of the new government was not as aimless as it looked. Arafat was keeping the heat up to distract attention from his next move, which was to be to dump the intransigent Abu Mazen in favor of his long-time pawn Nabil Shaath, to whom Abu Mazen had refused to award an influential post in his lineup. Arafat dispatched Shaath to Cairo where he normally resides to test the response in Hosni Murabakâs inner circle to his appointment. However, Washington struck fast on two tracks. A request went to the presidentâs office in Cairo not to receive the new Palestinian candidate; a stern US ultimatum was relayed to Arafat: Any more interference with Abu Mazenâs attempts to set up a Palestinian government will result not only in prolonging the international boycott of Arafat in person, but cause the scrapping of the Middle East road map promising the Palestinians a state. Arafatâs response is now awaited in Washington. It would be in character from him to employ dilatory tactics like Assad. Both appear to find it difficult to adjust to the fresh impetus and determination with which the Iraqi War has infused Washingtonâs Middle East strategy.