An Army of Translators - Gearing Up

So, the world has had a few days to digest the captured documents from Afghanistan and Iraq. It is, needless to say, slow going. A lot of stuff to go through.

What we can expect to see, at least on the Iraqi side, is the ordinariness of tyranny. This is a regime led by a tyrant bent on personal power for himself over as many people as he could get under his iron fist. These documents as a *whole* will show the world the type of regime Saddam ran, how it worked and how it went about its business of intimidation, deception, subborning of the UN and, generally, lying to the world about his intentions and capabilities.

And so it goes:

The Dread Punit Bluto looks at a French Mirage Fighter Jet salesman and a cabinet meeting to discuss how to deal with deserters from the Iraqi Army (there were deserts from that paradigm of perfection? who knew?): How Much is That Fighter in the Window? This sort of thing is far better at showing the validity of the documents as a source than any single document. Note styles and methodologies involved for the various individuals.


Newsmax looks at pre-9/11 Iraq and al Qaeda ties... going back at least 6 years before 9/11. Story here: Bin Laden Sought 'Joint Operations' With Saddam

The Jawa Report on 18 MAR 2005 looking at inconsistancy between the New York Times and what the documents actually say: Documents Confirm No Saddam Link to Terrorism

The Scotsman looks at Saddam's personal order for chemical weapons to be used on the Kurds: Letter shows Saddam ordered plans for chemical attack (h/t: Captain's Quarters Blog) Iraq had chemical weapons? Who knew?

Ray Robison is doing the blogswarm deal at his site, so I will lift a link or so from him:

• Ray Robison doing some linking between documents here do note the cross-check with other media sources. Very interesting to see Al Jazeera pop up in this.
  
• Ray Robison looking at anthrax stolen from Iraq possibilities. Just what *was* going on in Iraq? More than the nothing so many are purporting.
  
• Three German nuclear scientists linked to Iraq. Oh, Loverly! I am sure that they were looking at this as just a spare time project.
  
• Saddam caught out on chemical weapons missing. Well they are such *easy* things to lose.
  
• Saddam admits to chemical weapons attacks on Iran. Actually, pretty hard to keep secret, although no one trusts either side in this war. Enough horror to go around.
  
• Russians bribed for UN co-operation. Are we sure it wasn't for megatons... of borscht?
  
• Talking about plasma systems between officials. Fascinating, technology... military and civilian uses... and possibly using the civilian to cover the military. You mean Saddam might have done something like that? He is such a *nice* fellow!

Ray Robison is doing damn hard work to plough through these documents. A hearty thank you to Ray Robison and all working to get this done!

[And great, great apologies to Mr. Robison for mis-spelling his name.... *sigh*]